"No," he said, bringing forth a forlorn smile, "I couldn't find it.
It's not there."
That evening, after a supper served on a small tip-down table in the wireless cabin, after the boy had gone to his bunk below, and Lucile had fallen asleep, Marian lay awake a long time puzzling over the mysteries of the past and the problems of the future. Where had the blue envelope disappeared to? Did the boy have it? She resolved to search the cabin on the beach for herself. She felt half-inclined to talk matters over frankly with him. There were mysteries which might be cleared up. She remembered with what astonishing speed he had reached the cabin once he had sprung upon the shore. She remembered, too, how he had spoken of the disordered paint-box. She prided herself on neatness. And that paint-box, was it not her work-shop, her most prized possession? She longed to talk it over with him. But on the other hand, she could not bring herself to feel that her trust in him was fully warranted. She hated above all things to be "taken in." If she discussed all these things with him, and if, at the same time, the letter rested in his pocket, wouldn't she be taken in for fair? Wouldn't she, though?
"No," she pressed her lips tight shut, "no, I won't."
But even as she said this, she saw again the downhearted expression on his face, heard his mournful, "I couldn't find it. It's not there." With that she relented, and ere she slept resolved to take up the matter of the mysterious disappearance with him the first thing in the morning.
But morning found the boy in quite a different mood. He laughed and chatted gayly over his sour-dough pancakes.
"Now you know," he said, as he shoved back his stool, "I like your company awfully well, and I'd like to keep this up indefinitely, but truth is I can't; I've got to get across the Straits."
"We'll be sorry to lose you," laughed Marian; "but just you run along. And when you get there tell the missionary breakfast is ready. Ask him to step over and eat with us."
"No, but I'm serious."
"Then you're crazy. No white man has ever crossed thirty-five miles of floeing ice."
"There's always to be a first. Natives do it, don't they?"