"Then all the people say quick, 'No burn! No burn!' So no burn. See?
That's all."
The Eskimo smiled frankly, as he mopped the perspiration from his brow.
"They wanted to burn us because they thought we were spirits," Lucile said slowly; then suddenly, "What do they call this island?"
"This? This one island?" The Eskimo pointed to the floor.
"Yes." The girls learned forward eagerly.
"This one white man call 'Little Diomede.'"
The two girls stared at one another for a moment. Then they laughed. In the laugh there was both surprise and great joy. They were surprised that in all the drifting of their ice-floe they had been carried about in a circle, and at last landed only twenty-two miles across-ocean from their home, on Little Diomede Island, the halfway station between the mainland of America and Russia.
"We live at Cape Prince of Wales," said Lucile. "How can we go home?"
The Eskimo merely shrugged his shoulders and smiled.
"Whose is this house?" asked Marian.