ig fires. There were three of these fires now, and the tom-toms were
booming their hollow notes over the tundra as Alan quickened his steps.
Over a little knoll, and he was looking at the buildings of the range,
wildly excited figures running about, women and children flinging moss
on the fires, the tom-tom beaters squatted in a half-circle facing the
direction from which he would come, and fifty Chinese lanterns swinging
in the soft night-breeze.

He knew what they were expecting of him, for they were children, all of
them. Even Tautuk and Amuk Toolik, his chief herdsmen, were children.
Nawadlook and Keok were children. Strong and loyal and ready to die for
him in any fight or stress, they were still children. He gave Stampede
his rifle and hastened on, determined to keep his eyes from questing for
Mary Standish in these first minutes of his return. He sounded the
tundra call, and men, women, and little children came running to meet
him. The drumming of the tom-toms ceased, and the beaters leaped to
their feet. He was inundated. There was a shrill crackling of voice,
laughter, children's squeals, a babel of delight. He gripped hands with
both his own--hard, thick, brown hands of men; little, softer, brown
hands of women; he lifted children up in his arms, slapped his palm
affectionately against the men's shoulders, and talked, talked, talked,
calling each by name without a slip of memory, though there were fifty
around him counting the children. First, last, and always these were
_his people_. The old pride swept over him, a compelling sense of power
and possession. They loved him, crowding in about him like a great
family, and he shook hands twice and three times with the same men and
women, and lifted the same children from the arms of delighted mothers,
and cried out greetings and familiarities with an abandon which a few
minutes ago knowledge of Mary Standish's presence would have tempered.
Then, suddenly, he saw her under the Chinese lanterns in front of his
cabin. Sokwenna, so old that he hobbled double and looked like a witch,
stood beside her. In a moment Sokwenna's head disappeared, and there
came the booming of a tom-tom. As quickly as the crowd had gathered
about him, it fell away. The beaters squatted themselves in their
semicircle again. Fireworks began to go off. Dancers assembled. Rockets
hissed through the air. Roman candles popped. From the open door of his
cabin came the sound of a phonograph. It was a