"Where to? We'd starve in two days, or freeze. Come on. They won't hurt us."
With anxious hearts and trembling footsteps they approached the solid line of fur-clad figures which stretched along the southern outskirts of the village.
As they came close they heard one word repeated over and over: "Dezra!
Dezra!" (Enough! Enough!)
And as the natives almost chanted this single word, they pointed to a sled on which the girls' belongings had been neatly packed. To the sled three dogs were hitched, two young wolf-hounds with Rover as leader.
"They want us to go," whispered Lucile.
"Yes, and where shall we go?"
"East Cape is the only place."
"And that miner?"
"It may not be he."
Three times Marian tried to press her way through the line. Each time the line grew more dense at the point she approached. Not a hand was laid upon her; she could not go through, that was all. The situation thrilled as much as it troubled her. Here was a people kind at heart but superstitious. They believed that their very existence depended upon getting these two strangers from their midst. What was there to do but go?