"And you say that you are an American gentleman?"
"That he told me, lady, although I do not know my name or his, except that he was Stephen, and he called me Polaris."
"And did he never try to get to the north?" asked the girl.
"No. Many years ago, when I was a boy, he fell and was hurt. After that he could do but little. He could not travel."
"And you?"
"I learned to seek food in the wilderness, lady; to battle with its beasts, to wrest that which would sustain our lives from the snows and the wastes."
Much more of his life and of his father he told her under her wondering questioning—a tale most incredible to her ears, but, as he said, the truth. Finally he finished.
"Now, lady, what of you?" he asked. "How came you here, and from where?"
"My name is Rose—"
"Ah, that is the name of a flower," said Polaris. "You were well named."