“Well,” she laughed bravely, “we have reindeer, and they are swift. We will win yet.”
“Anyway,” she said, springing to her feet, “no use crying over spilled milk. Until we can leave the cave our time’s our own. Come on. Get dressed. We’ll see what wealth lies hidden in this old home in the mountain side.”
In the meantime Patsy was having a full share of strange adventure. Late in the afternoon, feeling herself quite free from the annoying presence of the visiting band of Eskimos and of Scarberry’s herd, she harnessed her favorite spotted reindeer and went for a drive up the valley. The two young Eskimos who worked under Terogloona had been sent into the hills to round up their herd and bring them into camp. This was one of the daily tasks of the herders. If this was done every day the herd would never stray too far. Patsy liked to mount a hill with her sled deer and then, like a general reviewing his troops, watch the broad procession of brown and white deer as they marched down the valley.
This day she was a little late. The herd began passing before she had climbed half way up the ridge. She paused to watch them pass. Then, undecided whether to climb on up the slope or turn back to camp, she stood there until the uncertain light of the low Arctic sun had faded and night had come. Just as she had decided to turn her deer toward home, she caught a purple gleam on the hill directly above her.
“The purple flame!” she exclaimed. “And not a quarter of a mile above me. I could climb up there in fifteen minutes.”
For a moment she stood undecided. Then, seized by a sudden touch of daring, she whirled her deer about, tethered him to his sled, and went scouting up a gully toward the spot where the mysterious flame had flashed for a moment, then had gone out.
“I’ll see something, anyway,” she told herself as she strove in vain to still the painful fluttering of her heart.
She had worked her way to a position on the side of the hill where the outlines of a tent, with its extension of stovepipe standing out black above it, was outlined against the sky. Then, to her consternation, she saw the flaps of the tent move.
“Someone is coming out,” she whispered to herself. “Perhaps they have been watching me through a hole in the tent. Perhaps—”
Her heart stopped beating at thought of the dangers that might be threatening. Should she turn and flee, or should she flatten herself against the snow and hope that she might not be seen? Suddenly remembering that her parka, made of white fawnskin, would blend perfectly with the snow, she decided on the latter course.