There was not a second to lose. Hardly had she melted into the background of snow when a person appeared at the entrance of the tent.
Then it was that Patsy received a thrilling shock. She had been prepared to see a bearded miner, an Eskimo, most any type of man. But the person she saw was not a man, but a woman; scarcely that—little more than a girl.
It was with the utmost difficulty that Patsy suppressed an audible exclamation. Closing her lips tight, she took one startled look at the strange girl.
Carefully dressed in short plaid skirt, bright checkered mackinaw, and a blue knit hood; the girl stood perfectly silhouetted against the sky. Her eyes and hair were brown; Patsy was sure of that. Her features were fine. There was a deep shade of healthy pink in her cheeks.
“She’s not a native Alaskan,” Patsy told herself. “Like me, she has not been long in Alaska.”
How she knew this she could not exactly tell, but she was as sure of it as she was of anything in life. Suddenly she was puzzled by a question: “What had brought the girl from the warmth of the tent into the cold?”
Patsy saw her glance up toward the sky. There was a rapt look on her face as she gazed fixedly at the first evening stars.
“It’s as if she were saying a prayer or a Psalm,” Patsy murmured. “‘The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament his handiwork.’”
For a full moment the strange girl stood thus; then, turning slowly, she stepped back into the tent. That the tent had at least one other occupant, Patsy knew at once by a shadow that flitted across the wall as the girl entered.
“Well,” mused Patsy. “Well, now, I wonder?”