This last problem did not trouble her greatly, however. They would find a guide at once and begin their great adventure of crossing from the Old World to the New on the ice-floe.
An interpreter was not hard to find. Many of the men had sailed on
American whalers. They were told by one of these that there was but
one man in all the village who ever attempted the dangerous passage of
Bering Straits. His name was O-bo-gok.
O-bo-gok was found sitting cross-legged on the sloping floor of his skin-igloo, adjusting a new point to his harpoon.
"You tell him," said the smiling college boy, "that we want to go to
Cape Prince of Wales. Can he go tomorrow?"
The interpreter threw up his hands in surprise, but eventually delivered his message.
The guide, a swarthy fellow, with shaggy, drooping moustache and a powerful frame, did not look up from his work. He merely grunted.
"He say, that one, no can do," smiled the interpreter.
The college boy was not disturbed. He jingled something in his hand. Marian, who stood beside him, saw that he held three double eagles. She smiled, for she knew that even here the value of yellow disks marked with those strange pictures which Uncle Sam imprints upon them was known.
The man, dropping his harpoon, began to talk rapidly. He waved his hands. He bobbed his head. At last he arose, sprang from the sleeping compartment and began to walk the space before the open fire. He was still talking. It seemed as if he would never run down.
When at last he had finished and had thrown himself once more upon the floor of the sleeping-room, the interpreter began: