CHAPTER VIII
RENEWED ACQUAINTANCE
No wildest nomadic dream could have exceeded the life which the two girls lived in the weeks that followed.
Trailing a reindeer herd over hills and tundra; camping now in a clump of willows by the glistening ice of a stream, now beneath some shelving rock, and now on the open wind-swept tundra itself. Eating about an open fire, while the smoke curled from the top of the dome of the tepee-like igloo, they reveled in the strange wildness of it all. Here were a people who paid no rent, no taxes, owned no land, yet lived always in abundance. In the box beside the sleeping-platform was tea and sugar. Over the fire hung a copper tea-kettle of ancient design. In the sleeping-box, which was made of long-haired deerskins, were many robes of short-haired deerskin, fawn-skin, and Siberian squirrel.
To all these the two girls were more than welcome. The stranger and his daughter did not live alone. A little tribe whose twenty igloos dotted the tundra traveled with them. These people were sometimes in need of simple remedies. For these they were singularly grateful. They, their women, and their children posed untiringly for sketches. But one thing Marion had not taken into consideration—these people seldom visited the village of East Cape. Although she did not know it, their herds were at this time feeding away from this trading metropolis of the straits region. Each day, while she seized every opportunity to sketch and hastened her work as much as she could, found them some ten miles farther from East Cape.
When at last, by signs and such native words as she knew, she indicated to her native friends that she was ready to return to East Cape, they stared at her in astonishment, and indicated by a diagram on the snow that they were now at a point three days' journey from that town; that none of them expected to return before the moon was again full.
No amount of gesturing and jabbering could make them understand that it was necessary for the girls to return at once.
"We'll never get back," Marion mourned in despair; "and it's all my fault."
"Oh, we'll make it still," encouraged Lucile, cheerfully. "Probably the straits are not fully frozen over yet, anyway."
But days passed. Four, five, six of them dragged wearily past, with no sign of preparation for a trip to East Cape. Driven to desperation, the girls were considering a mad attempt to reach the port alone, when a remarkable thing happened. They had just dressed and were frying reindeer chops for breakfast, one morning, when a round face was thrust in at the tent-flap and a cheery voice cried,
"Hello!"
For a moment they did not recognize the boy; then, with a breathless whisper, Lucile gasped, "Why! it's our man Friday of Mutineer's Island!"
And so it proved to be. The boy had learned to speak English brokenly during his sojourn in America. He had found his way back to his home on the north coast of Russia, and was now living with his own people. News travels far. He had heard of two strange white people living among the reindeer Chukches. He had traveled two hundred miles to see them.
"And now," he smiled, "now it is my very good friends, who save me much time ago."
The girls did not waste many moments before telling him their predicament. He set to work at once to assist them. Not three hours had passed when they found themselves again speeding over the snow, behind reindeer driven by their man Friday of other days.
It was a hard trip, with many an overturned sled and one terrible blizzard, which came howling down from the north, but in time they came in sight of the jagged slope of the hill that marked the spot where the little village nestled.
"Phi" met them at the outskirts of the town.
"Are—are we too late?" Marion's heart was in her mouth.
The boy smiled an odd smile.
"About six hours, I'd say."
"Six hours?"
"His nibs, the old Chukche guide, left for Cape Prince of Wales and all suburban points some six hours ago. Some one offered him more money than I did. I have a fancy it was your friend, the bearded miner, who wanted my mail."
"And—and you waited for us?"
"Naturally, since the guide left."
"But you could have gone sooner?"
"Some three days, I'm told."
"But you didn't?"
He smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
Marion's head whirled. She was torn between conflicting emotions. Most of all, she felt terribly ashamed. Here was a boy she had not fully trusted, yet he had given up a chance to escape to freedom, and had waited for them.
"I—I beg your pardon," she said weakly. She sat down rather unsteadily on the reindeer sled.
"We couldn't help it," she said presently, "They just wouldn't bring us back. Isn't there some other way?"
"I've thought of a possible one. I'll make a little try-out. Be back in an hour."
Phi was off like a flash. A couple of minutes later, the girls thought they heard him calling old Rover, who had been left in his care.
"Wonder what he wants of him?" said Lucile.
"I don't know," said Marion; "but I do know I'm powerful hungry. Let's go find something to eat."