had
demanded the blue envelope? If so, what then? Was there more than one
man? What was to come of it all, anyway?

All this sped through her mind while she was drawing on her parka. The
next moment she had opened the door, stepped out and closed the door
behind her.

"Ah! I have the pleasure--"

"You?" Marian gasped.

For a second she could say no more. Before her, dressed in a jaunty
parka of Siberian squirrel-skin, was her frank-faced college boy, he of
the Phi Beta Ki.

"Why, yes," he said rather awkwardly, "it is I. Does it seem so
strange? Well, yes, I dare say it does. Suppose you sit down and I'll
tell you about it."

Marian sat down on a section of the broken rail.

"Well, you see," he began, a quizzical smile playing about his lips,
"when I had completed my--my--well, my mission to the north of Cape
Prince of Wales, it was too late to return by dog-team. I waited for a
boat. I arrived at the P. O. you used to keep. You were gone. So was
my letter."

"Yes, you said--"

"That was quite all right; the thing I wanted you to do. But you see
that letter is mighty important. I had to follow. This craft we're
sitting on was coming this way. I took passage. She ran into a mess
of bad luck. First we were picked up by an ice-floe and carried far
into the Arctic Ocean. When at last we poled our way out of that, we
were caught by a storm and carried southwest with such violence that we
were thrown upon this sandbar. The ship broke up some, but we managed
to stick to her until the weather calmed. We went ashore and threw
some of the wreckage into the form of a cabin. You've been staying
there, I guess." He grinned.

Marian nodded.

"Well, the ship was hopeless. Natives came in their skin-boats from
East Cape."

"East Cape? How far--how far is that?"

"Perhaps ten miles. Why?"

He studied the girl's startled face.

"Nothing; only didn't a white man come with the natives?"

"A white man?"

"I've heard there was one staying there."

"No, he didn't come."

Marian settled back in her seat.

"Well," he went on, "the captain of this craft traded everything on
board to the natives for furs; everything but some food. I bought that
from him. You see, they were determined to get away as soon as
possible. I was just as determined to stay. I didn't know exactly
where you were, but was bound I'd find you and--and the letter." He
paused.

"By the way," he said, struggling to