"If another letter like that comes to me here, you keep it for me, will you?"
"Why, yes, only I won't be here much longer. I'm going to Nome after the break-up."
"I'm going north. I'll be back before then. But if I'm not, you keep it, will you?" There was a tense eagerness about him that stirred her strongly.
"Why, yes—I—I—guess so. But what shall I do if you don't get back before I leave?"
"Take it with you. Leave word where I can find you and take it."
"You see," he half-apologized, after a moment's thought, "these northern P. O.'s change hands so much, so many people handle the mail, that I—I'm afraid I might lose one of these letters, and—and—they're mighty important; at least, one of them is going to be. Will you do it? I—I think I'd trust you—though I don't just know why."
"Yes," Marian said slowly, "I'll do that."
Three minutes later she saw him skillfully disentangling his dogs and sending them on their way:
"One of those college boys," she whispered to herself. "They come North expecting to find gold shining in the sand of the beach. I've seen so many come up here as he is, happy and hopeful, and in three or four years I've seen them go 'outside,' old beyond their years, half-blind with snow-blindness, or worse; broken in body and spirit. I only hope it does not happen to him. But what's all the mystery, I'd like to know?"
She gave a sudden start. For the first time she realized that he had not given her his name.