feet had
turned into the Sundown Trail. Kayak's hand, loosely holding his
cooling pipe, rested on his knee. His sombrero backed his strong,
bearded face, which had taken on the serenity of the evening. His deep
eyes were calm with revery. As she gazed the girl's heart was flooded
with a pitying tenderness for him, for Kayak Bill who, because of
something buried deep in his past, faced the sunset of life--alone.

She turned her face away--and met the warm young eyes of Gregg Harlan
bent upon her. . . . Then suddenly she was glowingly happy because she
was still young.

CHAPTER XV

THE GIANT BALLS OF STONE

It was not yet five o'clock the following morning when Loll, from his
blankets on the floor of the cabin living-room, raised his tousled head
and looked cautiously about him. His big, grey eyes were alive with
eagerness and expectation. The strangeness of his surroundings
thrilled him with possibilities. Through the window the sun-flooded
world called him to adventure.

Again he glanced speculatively at the sleeping forms round him and then
eased warily out of bed.

With a pudgy finger on his lips and long steps of a stealthiness so
exaggerated that his balance was threatened at every move, he tip-toed
to the corner where his shoes lay, and without stopping for any further
addition to his toilet, slipped out the door in his nightgown.

He avoided the blanket-cocooned figures of Kayak Bill and Harlan on the
porch, and continued a short distance down the path to the chopping
block where he sat down to pull the shoes on his little bare feet.

Kobuk, returning from some early morning adventure on the beach, espied
him, and with a red-mouthed huskie smile, came bounding up the trail,
wriggling an extravagant and clumsy welcome. With loud whispers hissed
through fiercely protruding lips, Loll tried to shoo him away, but the
dog only whirled about, thumping him with a joyously wagging tail and
poking a cold damp nose down the neck of his nightgown.

After fastening the top button of his shoes the boy stood up and looked
about him. The wonderful sunniness of the world thrilled him. From
the blue sky soaring gulls called to one another, and the sunlight
poured down on the silver-green ocean and the little lake to the south.
Faint breaths of air stirred the scent of green things, and everywhere
was that exhilarating freshness of late summer that has in it the hint
of autumn frosts.

The youngster w