Thought of the narrowness of his escape and of the first mad desire to call her back from Nawadlook's room, to hold her in his arms again as he had held her in the cottonwoods, brought a hot fire into his face.

Something greater than his own fighting instinct had turned him to the open door of the cabin.

It was Mary Standish--her courage, the-glory of faith and love shining in her eyes, her measurement of him as a man.
She had not been afraid to say what was in her heart, because she knew what he would do.
Mid-afternoon found him waiting for Tautuk and Amuk Toolik at the edge of a slough where willows grew deep and green and the crested billows of sedge-cotton stood knee-high.

The faces of the herdsmen were sweating.
Thereafter Alan walked with them, until in that hour when the sun had sunk to its lowest plane they came to the first of the Endicott foothills.

Here they rested until the coolness of deeper evening, when a golden twilight filled the land, and then resumed the journey toward the mountains.
Midsummer heat and the winged pests of the lower lands had driven the herds steadily into the cooler altitudes of the higher plateaux and valleys.