if something had given her warning of a
presence behind, and as she hesitated in that birdlike, listening poise
a breath of wind from the little valley stirred her hair in a
shimmering veil that caught a hundred fires of the sun. And then, as he
crushed back his first impulse to cry out, to speak to her, she rose
erect beside the pool, her back still to him, and hidden to the hips in
her glorious hair.

Her movement revealed a towel partly spread out on the sand, and a
comb, a brush, and a small toilet bag. Philip did not see these. She
was turning, slowly, scanning the rocks beyond the valley.

Like a thing carven out of stone he stood, still speechless, still
staring, when she faced him.

CHAPTER TWO

A face like that into which Philip looked might have come to him from
out of some dream of paradise. It was a girl's face. Eyes of the pure
blue of the sky above met his own. Her lips were a little parted and a
little laughing. Before he had uttered a word, before he could rise out
of the stupidity of his wonder, the change came. A fear that he could
not have forgotten if he had lived through a dozen centuries leaped
into the lovely eyes. The half-laughing lips grew tense with terror.
Quick as the flash of powder there had come into her face a look that
was not that of one merely startled. It was fear--horror--a great,
gripping thing that for an instant seemed to crush the life from her
soul. In another moment it was gone, and she swayed back against the
face of the rock, clutching a hand at her breast.

"My God, how I frightened you!" gasped Philip.

"Yes, you frightened me," she said.

Her white throat was bare, and he could see the throb of it as she made
a strong effort to speak steadily. Her eyes did not leave him. As he
advanced a step he saw that unconsciously she cringed closer to the
rock.

"You are not afraid--now?" he asked. "I wouldn't have frightened you
for the world. And sooner than hurt you I'd--I'd kill myself. I just
stumbled here by accident. And I haven't seen a white woman--for two
years. So I stared--stared--and stood there like a fool."

Relief shot into her eyes at his words.

"Two years? What do you mean?"

"I've been up along the rim of h--I mean the Arctic, on a government
wild-goose chase," he explained. "And I'm just coming down."

"You're from the North?"

There was an eager emphasis in her question.

"Yes. Straight from Coronation Gulf. I ran ashore to cook a mess