Never had there been such a concentration of effort on the part of his people.

And Mary Standish was behind it all! He knew he was fighting against odds when he tried to keep that fact from choking up his heart a little.
He had not heard what Stampede was saying--that he and Amuk Toolik and forty kids had labored a week gathering dry moss and timber fuel for the big fires.

There were three of these fires now, and the tom-toms were booming their hollow notes over the tundra as Alan quickened his steps.
Over a little knoll, and he was looking at the buildings of the range, wildly excited figures running about, women and children flinging moss on the fires, the tom-tom beaters squatted in a half-circle facing the direction from which he would come, and fifty Chinese lanterns swinging in the soft night-breeze.
He knew what they were expecting of him, for they were children, all of them.

Even Tautuk and Amuk Toolik, his chief herdsmen, were children.
Nawadlook and Keok were children.

Strong and loyal and ready to die for him in any fight or stress, they were still children.