d Lucile unbelievingly.

"I wonder what--"

"Look, Marian; the whole village!"

"Let's run."

"Where to? We'd starve in two days, or freeze. Come on. They won't
hurt us."

With anxious hearts and trembling footsteps they approached the solid
line of fur-clad figures which stretched along the southern outskirts
of the village.

As they came close they heard one word repeated over and over: "Dezra!
Dezra!" (Enough! Enough!)

And as the natives almost chanted this single word, they pointed to a
sled on which the girls' belongings had been neatly packed. To the
sled three dogs were hitched, two young wolf-hounds with Rover as
leader.

"They want us to go," whispered Lucile.

"Yes, and where shall we go?"

"East Cape is the only place."

"And that miner?"

"It may not be he."

Three times Marian tried to press her way through the line. Each time
the line grew more dense at the point she approached. Not a hand was
laid upon her; she could not go through, that was all. The situation
thrilled as much as it troubled her. Here was a people kind at heart
but superstitious. They believed that their very existence depended
upon getting these two strangers from their midst. What was there to
do but go?

They went, and all through the night they assisted the little dog-team
to drag the heavy load over the first thin snow of autumn. Over and
over again Marian blessed the day she had been kind to old Rover
because he was a white man's dog, for he was the pluckiest puller of
them all.

Just as dawn streaked the east they came in sight of what appeared to
be a rude shack built of boards. As they came closer they could see
that some of the boards had been painted and some had not. Some were
painted halfway across, and some only in patches of a foot or two.
They had been hastily thrown together. The whole effect, viewed at a
distance, resembled nothing so much as a crazy-quilt.

"Must have been built from the wreckage of a house," said Lucile.

"Yes, or a boat."

"A boat? Yes, look; there it is out there, quite a large one. It's
stranded on the sandbar and half broken up."

The girls paused in consternation. It seemed they were hedged in on
all sides by perils. To go back was impossible. To go forward was to
throw themselves upon the mercies of a gang of rough seamen. To pass
around the cabin was only to face the bearded stranger, who, they had
reason to believe, was none other than the man