The younger one broke the silence.
"I'm tired of baskets! I want to do something else," she said, with a yawn.
"Run out upon the hills awhile, but first finish the row you are doing, then put all away in a safe place. No Russian leaves her work scattered to get lost or soiled," said the older woman.
"Am I a Russian lady?" queried the girl, apparently about the age of eighteen.
"You may be if your father comes to take you to Russia with him. But by this time he is likely dead;—there is no telling. It is three years since we saw him, and he promised to come again in two." And the woman sighed.
"Oh, he may come at any time, and I am going to the top of the hill to look for him now," said the girl with youth's hopefulness, as she hastened to obey her aunt.
"Don't set your mind on it, for sailor men are very uncertain; only they are pretty sure to roll around the whole world, making excuses that ships take them whether they will or not. A poor excuse for not coming is better than none." Then as the door closed behind the girl she added, "I wish he would send money to buy her clothes; it would be as little as he could do, for she is not my child, but my sister's. I, too, wish he would come, for a cold winter we have had taking much coal and many furs, and my money is nearly gone. To be sure when the steamers come with their hundreds of people bound for the gold fields we shall sell some of our baskets, but it will be weeks before they arrive," and she pulled industriously at the long strands of dried grass she was weaving into her basket.
While her aunt meditated on these and various other matters the girl, Eyllen, glad to get away from the cabin and basket-making, crossed the foot bridge over the small stream which ran behind the house and began to ascend the high bluff which she claimed as her watch tower. If she could only discern her father's ship in the distance, how surprised her aunt would be!
She scanned the horizon