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As he finished, a great, glad feeling of content swept over Marian; she had been right, had made no mistake; the letter was really Phi's. Now he had it and all was well. The following day they succeeded in finding a competent guide to pilot them the remaining distance across the Straits, and in due time they arrived safely at the cabin which had been their home.
As he stumbled forward, the native's falls became less frequent. "Sobering up," was Phi's mental comment. "We'll soon strike a place where the path leads down the side of the cliff. I wonder if he can make that alone or will he break his neck?" Suddenly the man disappeared from view. "That," said Phi to the dog, "means there's a path leading directly down, probably to some village.
Phi's experience in the village of the island upon which he had been cast was more happy than he could have dreamed of. It turned out that the native who had attacked him was the only drunken person on the island. That it was an island, the Big Diomede, he was immediately informed by a young native who had learned English on a whaler.
So it turned out that the two parties, Lucile and Marian and Phi and Rover, had been carried about on the ice-floe for three days at last to be landed on twin islands. Phi's first thought was for the safety of his former traveling companions.
Seal steak was not bad, and seal liver was as good as calf's liver. Polar bear steak and walrus stew were impossible. "Wouldn't even make good hamburger," was Phi's verdict. The boiled flipper of a white-whale was tender as chicken. But when a hind quarter of reindeer meat found its way into the village there was feasting indeed.
The strain of the adventure into this puzzling, unknown ice-field was telling on their nerves. "I wish we were safe at Cape Prince of Wales," sighed Marian. "Yes, or even East Cape," said Lucile. "I think I'd be content to stay there and chance the year with the natives." "Anyway, Phi's doing his best," said Marian. "Isn't he a strange one, though? Do you think he has the blue envelope?"
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