Neither Polaris nor the girl was contented to rest all the hours away on the grassy terraces of the gateway, but wandered together through the valley, learning more of its wonders. Everywhere they found industry. Men and women worked in their little farm plots and vineyards, tending the fruits and grains in which the valley was rich; many of them akin to those known in the outside world, and others which would have made a life study for a botanist.
In all Sardanes the work was so apportioned that the products of the soil and of the craftsman supplied evenly the demands of the valley dwellers. In one section lived and labored the weavers and the dyers of cloths; in another the makers of sandals and articles of leather; and in a roomy stone smithy they found Kard the Smith and his men, the workers in metal, beating out buckles and jewelry, daggers, spears, and implements of many other uses.
Not many of the smiths were necessary, for the metal in which they worked was of incredible hardness and durability, and was tempered by the smiths to a fineness beyond any steel. It was that which had first attracted the attention of Polaris in the Hunters' Road, when he found the dagger of Kard gleaming in the snow-path. Ilium it was named, and it was mined from the volcanic rock far up in the mountainside.
Other metals were found in the rocks, but none of a quality to compare with ilium, or none that had its iridescent beauty.
Gems they also knew, and many an ornament worn by the Sardanian men and maids flashed with bright stones. One variety, of a wonderful rich, red luster, Rose Emer thought were rubies, but she was not enough versed in gem learning to be sure. If they were rubies, they were of immense value, for they were of large sizes, and most of them were flawless to their depths.
On the wall in the library of Kalin the priest hung a necklace of such, containing a full score of magnificent stones, each of many carats weight, fairly well cut into facets by the Sardanian lapidaries who had fashioned them. Each stone was set in a ring of the glittering ilium, attached one to another with links of the metal.
One innovation the strangers took into the valley that was hailed with acclaim. Until the advent of Polaris and Rose Emer not a button was known in the length of the land. Everything sartorial was fastened with buckles.
Sardanian craftsmen and housewives were quick to note the uses of the perforated disks, and buttons were straightaway the new fashion, and were sewn on all garments. When enough were placed to answer their purpose of holding things together still more were added for ornament, until some of the Sardanian robes bore no distant likeness to the creations of a Parisian modiste, with their rows of holeless buttons.
On the fifth day after their interview with the Prince Helicon, Kard the Smith came to the gateway to repay their visit, and to bring an invitation to Polaris to go out with a party of the hunters along the Hunters' Road to the edge of the wilderness to hunt the white bear.