By a few words and by signs they were made to understand that these
people came from a point some two hundred miles farther north, a
village on the north coast of Russia.

As ever, eager to look upon some new type, Marian crowded through the
throng when, to her immense surprise, the smaller of the three, in
reality only a boy, sprang forward, and, kneeling at her feet, kissed
the fur fringe of her parka.

This action, so unusual among these natives, struck her dumb. But once
he had looked up into her face, she understood all; he was none other
than the strange brown boy who had come swimming to them from the sea
off the coast of Washington.

She was so surprised and startled at first sight of him that she found
herself incapable of action. It seemed to her that she must be seeing
a ghost. It appeared entirely incredible that he should be in this out
of the way place when they had left him, months before, on a deserted
island of Puget Sound.

Her second reaction was one of great joy; here was someone who really
owed them a debt of gratitude. Might they not hope to receive
assistance from him in solving the problem of making their way to the
shore of Bering Straits?

Springing to his feet, the boy mingled native dialect with badly spoken
English in his expression of joy at meeting them again.

At last, when the crowd had gone its way and the girls had invited him
to their tent, he told them in the few words of English he had learned
since seeing them, and with many clever drawings, the story of his
adventures.

He was a native of the north coast of Russia; a far away point where
white men's boats never come. One whaleship had, however, been carried
there by the ice-floes. After trading for the natives' furs and ivory,
and having found an open channel of water to the east, the captain had
kidnaped him and carried him from his home. He had been made the
captain's slave.

So badly was he treated, over-worked, kicked, cuffed and beaten, that
when at last he saw land off the coast of Washington, dressed only in
his bird-skin suit, he had leaped overboard when no one was looking and
had attempted to swim ashore.

The ship had passed on out of sight. He had been swimming for two
hours when the girls rescued him from what was almost sure to have been
a watery grave, for he was almost ready to give up hope.

He had been missed from the ship and the captain, fearing the strong
arm of the law if he were rescued