Before going to sleep, Marian walked out into the night to view her herd. The sky was clear. The golden moon made the night light as day. The herd was resting peacefully. She wondered vaguely if other human beings might be near. Their mysterious guide had left them at the shore of the lake. At no time had he come close enough to be identified. She was wondering about him, and as her gaze swept the horizon she saw the red and yellow gleam of a camp-fire.
Her feeling toward that camp-fire had changed. There had been a time when it filled her with fear. Now, as she gazed steadily at it, it seemed a star of hope, a protecting fire that was perhaps to go with them all their long journey through.
“The Indian’s camp, I suppose. And yet,” she asked herself, “is it? It might be the tent of the purple flame, and if it is, do they mean us good or ill?”
Sleep that night was long and refreshing. They awoke next morning with renewed courage. Before them lay great sweeping stretches of tundra. For days, without a single new adventure, they pushed on toward Fort Jarvis. Sometimes, beside a camp-fire of willows, Marian sat wondering how they were coming on with their race. Were Scarberry and his herd nearer the Fort than they? There was no way to tell. Traveling the trackless Arctic wilderness is like sailing the boundless sea. As a thousand ships might pass you by night or day, so a thousand herds, taking other courses, might pass this one on its way to Fort Jarvis and no owner know of the others passing.
Sometimes, too, she thought of those mysterious camp followers—the people of the purple flame. She no longer feared them; was curious about them, that was all. No longer did she catch the gleam of their light by night. Had they turned aside, gone back, or had they merely extinguished their unusual light?
The Indians, she thought, must have been left behind. They would not travel far from their hunting ground. They had been served, and had served in turn. Now they might safely be forgotten.
Then there came a time that called for all the courage and endurance their natures could command. One night they found themselves camped among the foothills of a range of mountains. The mountains, a row of alternating triangles of deep purple and light yellow, lay away to the east and at their peaks the snow, tossed high in air by the incessant gales that blew there, made each peak seem a smoking volcano.
“To-morrow,” said Terogloona, throwing out his hand in a sweeping gesture, “we must cross.”
“Is there no other way?” asked Patsy.
“Must do!” said Terogloona as he turned to the task of putting all in readiness.