There was now a definitely marked trail. An ax cut here and there on a tree told them this trail had been made by men, and not by moose and caribou. They had seen no traces of man. No human habitation had sent its gleam of light across their trail to bid them welcome. Scarcely knowing whether she wished to see the light of a cabin, Marian tramped doggedly on. It was long past camping time, yet she feared to make camp. Several times she had caught the long drawn howl of a wolf, faint and indistinct in the distance.
With a burst of joy and hope she thought of the progress they had made. The tramp across open tundra had been fearfully hard. They had, however, reaped from it a rich reward; the river they had found was larger than the other and its surface had offered an almost perfect trail. It flowed north by west instead of southwest. It took them directly on their way. Even now Marian was wondering if this were not the very river at whose junction with the great Yukon was located the station they sought to reach before the Government Agent had passed.
“If it is,” she murmured, “what can hinder us from making the station in time?”
It seemed that there could be but one answer to this; yet in the Arctic there is no expression that is so invariably true as this one: “You never can tell.”
Then, suddenly, Marian’s thoughts were drawn to another subject. A peculiar gleam of moonlight among the trees reminded her of the purple flame. At once she began wondering what could be the source of that peculiar and powerful light; who possessed it, and what their purpose was in living on the tundra.
“And Patsy?” she questioned herself, “I wonder if they are troubling her. Wonder if they are really living off our deer. I wish I had not been obliged to leave our camp. Seems that there were problems enough without this. I wish—”
Suddenly she put out one hand and stopped her deer, while with the other she gave Attatak a mute signal for silence.
Breaking gently through the hushed stillness of the forest, like a spring zephyr over a meadow, there came to her ears a sound of wonderful sweetness.
“Music,” she breathed, “and such music! The very music of Heaven!”
Moments passed, and still with slightly bowed heads, as if listening to the Angelus, they stood there, still as statues, listening to the strange music.