A sound did reach her ears, a short, sharp barking. White foxes barking in the night. But this other sound—could it be some wild creature, perhaps a wolf, grumbling to his mate?
After that the night was still. She thought there had never before been such silence—the great white silence of the North. She imagined one might hear the rush of stars in their orbits.
Then again that silence was broken. The sound this time was very near, like the low mush-mush of footsteps on the snow, it seemed to come from the ridge above. Three clumps of spruce trees were there. Anyone passing from one to the other would be hidden. The nearest was not twenty yards from the camp. Her hands moved nervously as she sat watching those low spruce trees.
A moment passed, another, and yet another. The silence appeared to deepen. Blue-gray shadows of trees seemed to creep toward her. Absurd! She shook herself free of the illusion.
Then of a sudden she saw it—a face. One instant it was there among the spruce boughs. The next it was gone.
“A native?” A prickly sensation raced up her spine. It was night. She was alone, was awake. Should she waken the others?
“It’s my watch,” she told herself resolutely. “The face is gone. The reindeer are safe. So-o—” with a sigh she settled back in her place.
When she awoke next morning she was tempted to believe that her seeming to see that face among the trees was the result of an overworked imagination.
It was At-a-tak who soon changed her mind about this. The native girl had stood a short watch in the early morning. The face among the trees had reappeared. The man had spoken to her in his native tongue. The story she had to tell was strange.
This man she said was indeed a native of Russia. He and his people had visited America in a big skin boat. When they started on the homeward journey, ice drove them back. In America, they had no food. They must hunt. Finding this herd, and knowing little of American laws, they had driven it into the hills.