“Well,” she said, gathering herself up, “we’re here!”
They were. But where were they?
“We’re lucky to be here at all,” was Speed’s comment. “And we’re here for some time! Require three days to smooth down these snow ridges for a take-off.”
“Three—three days!” Mary cried in dismay. “Why, then we—”
At that moment there arose a prodigious noise. Dogs, dozens of them, were making the air hideous with their barking. A moment more, and their plane was surrounded by great gray roaring beasts—Siberian wolfhounds, the fiercest, strangest, bravest dogs in all dog-land.
“Could anything be more terrible!” Mary wailed. “We must be nearly there, and now—”
“We can’t leave our plane, just now, that’s certain,” said Speed. “But wait! Luck may still be with us. Those dogs belong to someone. They came from somewhere.”
“Came from the hole in that snow-bank,” said Il-ay-ok. “House there!”
That “hole in a snow-bank” was indeed the entrance to a small low cabin quite buried in snow. Then from that hole came a huge man.
“A perfect giant of a man!” Mary was all aquiver with excitement. “It’s like a fairy story.”