"And I promised to personally conduct that mysterious mail of his!" she exclaimed under her breath.
CHAPTER IV
FOR HE IS A WHITE MAN'S DOG
Two months had elapsed since the mysterious college boy had passed on north with his dog-team.
Many things could have happened to him in those months. As Marian sat looking away at the vast expanse of drifting ice which had been restless in its movements of late, telling of the coming of the spring break-up, she wondered what had happened to the frank-eyed, friendly boy. He had not returned. Had a blizzard caught him and snatched his life away? The rivers were overflowing their banks now, though thick and rotten ice was still beneath the milky water. Had he completed his mission north, and was he now struggling to make his way southward? Or was he securely housed in some out-of-the-way cabin, waiting for open water and a schooner?
A letter had come, a letter in a blue envelope, and addressed as the other to Phi Beta Ki. That was after Lucile's return. Lucile had been away to the Nome market with her deer herd when the first letter had come, but had now been home for a month. The two of them had laughed and wondered about that letter. They had put it in the pigeon-hole, and there it now was. But Marian had not forgotten her promise to take it with her in case the boy did not return before she left the Cape.
Now, as she watched-the restless ocean, she realized that it would not be many days before it would break its bonds. The ice would then float away to points unknown. Little gasoline schooners would go flitting here and there like sea-gulls, and then would come the hoarse voice of the Corwin, mail steamer for Arctic. She would take that steamer to Nome. Would the boy be back by then, or would she carry the mysterious letter with her? For a long time Marian gave herself up to speculation.
As she sat dreaming of these things, she started suddenly. Something had touched her foot.
"Oh;" she exclaimed, then laughed.
The most forlorn-looking dog she had ever seen had touched her foot with his nose. His hair was ragged and matted. His bones protruded at every possible point. His mouth was set awry, one side hanging half-open.