“And how about me?” Bill demanded in a bantering tone. “You should be glad I’m back.”
“We are, Bill,” Mrs. Hughes said with a friendly smile. “Awfully glad to have you back.”
“But you’ll not have me long. Boo!” Bill shuddered. “I’m off with the wild birds for a warmer climate.”
“You’ll be back, Bill,” the elder McQueen rumbled. “You’ve been a pioneer for a summer. After that you may not want to be a pioneer, but you’ll be one all the same. The snow-peaked mountains, the timber that turns to green in spring and gold in autumn, the lure of gold, the call of the wild will bring you back.”
“I don’t know about that.” For once Bill’s face took on a sober look.
Turning about, Mrs. Hughes led them all, like a brood of chicks, to the cabin where the delicious odor of roast venison greeted their nostrils. Over that venison, now turning it, now testing, and now turning again, large, silent, mysterious, hovered Madam Chicaski.
“So you’re going to Nome by plane?” the eyes of Mrs. Maver, Florence’s gray-haired hostess at Anchorage, shone. “Going with the Bowmans? Why, that’s splendid. They are old friends of ours. We knew them before they went to Nome. I must have them over to dinner.” And she did.
“So you’re going north with us?” Mrs. Bowman, a round, jolly person, beamed on Florence as they entered the small parlor to await the announcement of dinner. “Never been there before, have you?”
“No, I—”
“You’ll enjoy it. Why, you’re just the sort of girl for that country. Healthy! Look at her cheeks, John,” Mrs. Bowman turned to her husband.