The envelope had been torn open, but the letter, though blurred with grime and dirt, was still in it. With eager fingers he pulled it out.
"Couldn't read our cipher, so he was going to Nome for help, I reckon," he muttered. "All I've got to say is, it's lucky he lost it and I found it."
He read the missive hastily, then a light of hope shone in his eye.
"If only I can make it back to the American shore," he exulted.
"Rover, old boy, get back on your job. We're going to the islands."
Hopefully he hurried forward. But they had tarried too long, for, not a hundred rods from their starting point, they came upon a broad, dark break in the floe, such a break as no draw-bridge of ice would ever span.
"And, like the other, it's endless," Phi groaned as his eye swept the line from left to right and from right to left again; then he sat down to think.
A half hour before this Lucile had said to Marian: "Listen, I think I hear a dog bark."
They listened and the bark came to them very distinctly.
"Is it Rover, or does it come from the island?" asked Lucile.
"I can't tell," whispered Marian.