“Not alone that, but the airplane carries us a thousand miles far above impassable trails and leaves us with picks, shovels, and food in abundance to work out our own salvation. Is it not all very wonderful?”
Ah, yes, it was wonderful. Yet this conscientious girl, as she sat by the fire thinking things through, was distinctly unhappy.
“If only we had come into possession of the pictures in an honorable manner!” she thought, with a sigh.
“Why don’t I confide in one of father’s partners?” she asked herself. “But which one?”
That indeed was the question. Going at it in blind fashion, as she must, she would with the usual bad luck of such a venture, ask advice of the very one who had stolen the films.
“And he would only lead me away on a false scent,” she told herself. “No, no! I shall say nothing. Watchful waiting, that’s the thing.” With that she sprang to her feet. She felt in need of a touch of the cold night air. Its tingle sent her blood racing. Beneath the stars she could think clearly.
She had ever been a person of action, had this slim, dark-haired girl. In college it had been basketball, tennis and hockey. Here she was limited to following-the dog team and taking long walks by herself. Drawing on her parka and seizing a stout stick, she marched away into the moonlight.
“How still it is!” she said to herself. “And how wonderful! The moon and the stars seem near. God seems near. It is good to be alone with Him.”
So, sometimes communing with herself and sometimes with the stars, she wandered farther than she intended.
She had rounded a clump of spruce trees when suddenly the silence was broken by a terrific snort, and a great dark bulk came charging down upon her from the hill above.