hey plodded on, but did not reach the summit that night, nor did
they find any further solution to the riddle of the lost bear skull,
which latter Rob left in the trail, intending to pick it up on their
return, although Skookie seemed to be averse to this performance; owing,
no doubt, to some of his native superstitions. That night they camped
high up in an air which was very cold, so that they shivered before
morning, although their fire of little logs had not yet burned out.

By noon of the next day, two camps out from the sea, and at a distance
of perhaps twenty-five miles or more, they reached what was plainly the
divide between this valley and another leading off to the northwestward.
Here they paused. Before them stretched a wilderness of upstanding
mountain peaks into which there wound the narrow end of a new valley,
widening but slightly so far as their eyes could trace it.

"Eagle Harbor that way, Skookie?" asked Rob, leaning on his rifle and
looking out over the wild sea which lay before him.

"I dinno," said Skookie.

"How far do you think it is?"

"I dinno."

The Aleut lad was truthful, for neither he nor any of his family had
ever crossed the island here, and he knew nothing of what lay ahead.
Plainly uneasy now, Skookie had had enough of travel away from camp.
"Maybe go back now?" he asked Rob, inquiringly.

"I suppose so," replied the latter, "although I'd jolly well like to go
over in here a little farther. I've a notion we'd come out somewhere
closer to Kadiak town; and maybe we'd run across some native who would
take us in. But there doesn't seem to be any game except once in a while
a ptarmigan--those mountain grouse that strut and crow around here on
the snow, and aren't big enough to waste rifle ammunition on. Maybe it's
safer to go back to our camp and wait for a month or so more at least.
What do you say, fellows?"

The others, who were very tired and a little uneasy at being so far from
what was their nearest approach to a home, voted for the return. So,
after a rest at the summit, where cutting winds soon drove them back,
they shouldered their lighter packs and began to retrace their way down
the valley to the sea.

Now they did not have to build any shelters for the night and could use
their old camps. They found that their appetites were increased by their
hard work, so that after the last camp they had little left to carry
except their blankets and guns, although Rob manfully insist