igloo where she was hidden
from their view.

An open space of six hundred feet lay between her and the cliff around
which the trail to the southern shelter lay. Annadoah summoned all her
strength of will, and then proceeded to walk slowly, with her head bent
and her face concealed, so as to avoid arousing suspicion, over the
dangerous area. Her heart trembled within her--at any moment she
expected to hear the savage cries. When she reached the cliff she felt
as if she were about to faint.

Looking fearfully backward, with a sigh of immeasurable relief, she saw
that she was unobserved. Raising her head heavenward she breathed her
thanks to the dead father and mother who were undoubtedly watching.
She turned about the cliff, her heart bounding tumultuously, and,
panting the words of the magic spell, asked that her legs be given the
swiftness of the wind spirits. She was very faint, she had scarcely
any feeling whatever in her limbs; but summoning all her courage,
bringing to bear all the love of this child she sought to save, she
turned and ran.

It was not long before she heard--or imagined--the angry cries of
pursuing natives behind her.

X

"_A frail, pitiful figure Annadoah stood on the cliff, wringing her
hands toward the declining sun . . . 'I-o-h-h-h,' she moaned, and her
voice sobbed its pathos over the seas. 'I-o-h-h-h! I-o-h-h-h,
Sukh-eh-nukh! Unhappy sun--unhappy sun! I-o-h-h-h, Annadoah--unhappy,
unhappy Annadoah!'_"

Twenty miles to the south, on a great cliff which stepped stridently
into the polar sea, stood a house built of stray timber and boxes
which, for a half decade, had been the summer headquarters of parties
of Danish and Newfoundland traders who came north annually and scoured
Greenland for ivories and furs. The hulk of a house was
weather-beaten, dilapidated, and scarred black by the burning cold. A
more desolate habitation could not be imagined in all the world, a more
devastated land could nowhere else on all the globe be found. For
leagues and leagues to the north and south, the scrofulous promontories
lay barren under the blight of the merciless northern blasts. Over the
corroded iron rocks strata of red earth and deeper crimson ore ran like
the streaky stains of monstrous and unhuman murders committed in aeons
past. Not a particle of vegetation was visible; there were no lichens
nor starry flowers. There was no life save that of the black birds
which winged re