“All right, old dear; only be careful.” Marian gave her a rousing hug, then whispered as she drew the deerskins about her:
“Go to sleep now. I must be away before dawn.”
CHAPTER VI
A JOURNEY WELL BEGUN
Two hours before the tardy dawn, Marian and Attatak were away. With three tried and trusted reindeer—Spot, Whitie, and Brownie—they were to attempt a journey of some hundreds of miles. Across trackless wilderness they must lay their course by the stars until the Little Kalikumf River was reached. After this it was a straight course down a well marked trail to the trading station, providing the river was fully frozen over.
This river was one of the many problems they must face. There were others. Stray dogs might attack their deer; they might cross the track of a mother wolf and her hungry pack of half grown cubs; a blizzard might overtake them and, lacking the guiding light of the stars, they might become lost and wander aimlessly on the tundra until cold and hunger claimed them for their own. But of all these, Marian thought most of the river. Would it be frozen over, or would they be forced to turn back after covering all those weary miles and enduring the hardships?
“Attatak,” she said to the native girl, “they say the Little Kalikumf River has rapids in it by the end of a glacier and that no man dares shoot those rapids. Is that true?”
“Eh-eh,” (yes) answered Attatak. “Spirit of water angry at ice cut away far below. Want to shoot rapids; boats and man run beneath that ice. Soon smashed boat, killed man. That’s all.”
It was quite enough, Marian thought; but somehow they must pass these rapids whether they were frozen over or not.
“Ah, well,” she sighed, “that’s still far away. First comes the fight with tundra, hills and sweeping winds.”
Patting her reindeer on the side, she sent him flying up the valley while she raced along beside him.