In spite of her expectations, she gasped at what she saw. A purple flame, now six inches in length, now a foot, now two feet, darted out of space, then receded, then flared up again. Three feet above the surface of the snow, it appeared to hang in midair like some ghost fire.
Marian’s heart beat wildly. Her nerves tingled, her knees trembled, and open-mouthed, without the power to move, she stared at this strange apparition.
This spell lasted for a moment. Then, with a half audible exclamation of disgust, she dropped limply to the snow.
“Inside a tent,” she said. “Tent was so like the snow and the sky that I couldn’t see it at first.”
As her eyes became accustomed to this version of her discovery she was able to make out the outlines of the tent and even to recognize a dog sleeping beside it.
Suddenly the shadow of a person began dancing on the wall of the tent. So rapid were the flashes of the purple flame, so flickering and distorted was this image, that it seemed more the shadow of a ghost than of a human being. A second shadow joined the first. The two of them appeared to do some wild dance. Then, of a sudden, all was dark. The purple flame had vanished.
A moment later a yellow light flared up. Then a steady light gleamed.
“Lighted a candle,” was Marian’s comment. “It’s on this side of them, for now they cast no shadows. Are they all men? Or, are there some women? How many are there? Two, or more than two? They are following us. I’d swear to that. I wonder why?”
Again she thought of the stories she had heard of ne’er-do-wells who dogged the tracks of reindeer herds like camp followers, and lived upon the deer that had strayed too far from the main herd.
“Perhaps,” Marian mused, “they have heard that father’s herd is to be run this winter by two inexperienced girls. Perhaps they think we will be easy. Perhaps—” she set her lips tight, “perhaps we will, and perhaps not. We shall see.”