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Updated: June 14, 2025
It was Nawadlook who turned first and saw who it was with Mary Standish, and from his right came an odd little screech that only one person in the world could make, and that was Keok. She dropped the armful of sticks she had gathered for the fire and made straight for him, while Nawadlook, taller and less like a wild creature in the manner of her coming, was only a moment behind.
His face was gray and haggard, a face grown suddenly old, and he traveled slowly, for the desire to reach his people was dying within him. He could not laugh with Keok and Nawadlook, or give the old tundra call to Amuk Toolik and his people, who would be riotous in their happiness at his return. They loved him. He knew that.
And it seemed to him that knowledge of this mystery was in the girl's face, glowing in a gentle embarrassment, as she told him she had been expecting him, and that Keok and Nawadlook had given up the cabin to them, so that he might question her uninterrupted. But with this soft flush of her uneasiness, revealing itself in her eyes and cheeks, he saw neither fear nor hesitation.
He bent his head to catch her words, almost drowned by the hissing of a sky-rocket and the popping of firecrackers. She nodded toward the buildings beyond his cabin. "I am with Keok and Nawadlook. They have given me a home." And then swiftly she added, "I don't think you love your people more than I do, Alan Holt!"
Mary Standish was leading the way up out of a dip in the tundra a quarter of a mile away, with Nawadlook and Keok close behind her. They trotted up a low ridge and disappeared. "It's none of my business," persisted Stampede, "but you didn't seem to expect her " "You're right," interrupted Alan, turning toward his pack. "I didn't expect her. I thought she was dead."
"I'm not talking about Mary Standish," said Stampede. "It's Nawadlook. If it wasn't for my whiskers " His words were broken by a sudden detonation which came out of the pale gloom ahead of them. It was like the explosion of a cannon a long distance away. "One of them cussed bums," he explained. "That's why they hurried on ahead of us, Alan.
Because Sokwenna was the "old man" of the community and therefore the wisest and because with him lived his foster-daughters, Keok and Nawadlook, the loveliest of Alan's tribal colony Sokwenna's cabin was next to Alan's in size. And Alan, looking at it now and then as he ate his breakfast, saw a thin spiral of smoke rising from the chimney, but no other sign of life.
The strangeness of the laugh told him more than anything else the tension he had been under. Another half-hour, and he came up out of the dip behind Sokwenna's cabin and tried the door. It was locked. A voice answered his knock, and he called out his name. The bolt shot back, the door opened, and he stepped in. Nawadlook stood at her bedroom door, a gun in her hands.
Keok faced him, holding grimly to a long knife, and between them, staring white-faced at him as he entered, was Mary Standish. She came forward to meet him, and he heard a whisper from Nawadlook, and saw Keok follow her swiftly through the door into the other room.
And then he learned the secret, softly whispered, with sweet, warm lips pressed to his. "It wasn't a doctor I sent for, Alan. It was a minister. We need one to marry Stampede and Nawadlook and Tautuk and Keok. Of course, you and I can wait " But she never finished, for her lips were smothered with a love that brought a little sob of joy from her heart.
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