“Eleet-pon-a-muck,” (too bad), said Attatak as she turned her back to the storm.
For Marian, however, the spectacle held a strange fascination. Had the thing been possible, she should have liked nothing better than leaping out into it. To battle with it; to answer its roar with a wild scream of her own; to whirl away with it; to become a part of it; to revel in its madness—this, it seemed to her, would be the height of ecstatic joy. Such was the call of unbridled nature to her joyous, triumphant youth.
It was with reluctance that she at last turned back into the depths of the cave and helped Attatak unroll the bedding roll and prepare for the night.
“To-morrow,” she whispered to Attatak before she closed her eyes in sleep, “if the storm has not passed, and we dare not venture out, we will explore the cave.”
“Eh-eh,” Attatak answered drowsily.
The next moment the roaring storm had no auditors. The girls were fast asleep.
CHAPTER XI
THE GIRL OF THE PURPLE FLAME
There is something in the sharp tang of the Arctic air, in the honest weariness of a long day of tramping, in the invigorating freshness of everything about one, that makes for perfect repose. In spite of the problems that faced them, regardless of the mystery that haunted this chamber of nature, hour after hour, to the very tune of the whirling storm, the girls slept the calm and peaceful sleep of those who bear ill will toward no one.
When at last Marian pried her eyes open to look at her watch, she was surprised to learn that eight hours had passed. She did not look to see the gleam of dawn at the mouth of the cave. Dawn in this strange Arctic land was still four hours away.
She knew that the storm was still raging. There came the roar and boom of the wind. Now and again, as if the demons of storm were determined upon pulling them from their retreat, a steady sucking breath of it came sweeping down through the cave. Marian listened, and then she quoted: