“Ho, well,” he sighed at last, “let to-morrow take care of itself. Perhaps Jennings really knows a way. He doesn’t look like a four-flusher.”
With that his mind turned for a moment to the girl, the Whisperer. Though he had never seen her, he had come to think of this Whisperer as a real person. And indeed she must be, for, times without number, in the Secret Tower Room back there in the city, in the wireless room on the yacht, in the tent on the trail, her whisper had come to him. Always it told of the doings of one man, the man he had been sent after. But what sort of person? He had pictured her to himself as a small, dark, vivacious girl with snapping black eyes. Yet that was only a piece of fancy. He knew nothing about her save the fact that she seemed always near the man he now was seeking. He wondered vaguely now whether he would meet her upon this trip. He tried to imagine the cabin, the lonely trail or the deep forest of the north where he might meet her.
“Probably never will,” he told himself at last. “Probably will always be just a whisper.”
In the midst of his revery he fell asleep.
CHAPTER II
ON ARCTIC FEATHERS
A tardy dawn had scarcely come creeping over the surface of the glacier when they broke camp. Having breakfasted heartily on sourdough flapjacks, warmed-over baked beans and coffee, they were ready for anything.
“We’ll sleep in a better bed to-night,” remarked Jennings as he rolled up the canvas floor to their tent and threw it on his sled.
“Couldn’t be warmer,” said Curlie.
“No, but softer.”
“Cheer-o,” shouted Joe, “that sounds good to me.”