"How?"
"Got a new guide. I'll show you. Be ready in a half-hour. Bring your pictures and a little food. Not much. Wear snowshoes. Ice is terribly piled up."
He disappeared in the direction of his own igloo.
Marian looked about the cozy deerskin home where were stored their few belongings, then gazed away at the masses of deep purple shadows that stretched across the imprisoned ocean. For a moment courage failed her.
"Perhaps," she said to herself, "it would be better to try to winter here."
But even as she thought this, she caught a vision of that time when she and her companion had been crowded out of a native village to shift for themselves. Then, too, she thought of the possible starving-time in the spring, after the white bear had gone north and before walrus would come, or trading schooners.
"No," she said out loud, "no, we'd better try it."
When the girls joined Phi on the edge of the ice-floe, they looked about for the guide but saw none. Only Rover barked them a welcome.
"Where's the guide?" asked Lucile.
"You'll see. C'm'on," said the boy, leading the way.