As he rose from the table, he glanced again toward Sokwenna's cabin. A
solitary figure had climbed up out of the ravine and stood against the
sun on the clough-top. Even at that distance, with the sun in his eyes,
he knew it was Mary Standish.
He turned his back stoically to the window and lighted his pipe. For
half an hour after that he sorted out his papers and range-books in
preparation for the coming of Tautuk and Amuk Toolik, and when they
arrived, the minute hand of his watch was at the hour of eight.
That the months of his absence had been prosperous ones he perceived by
the smiling eagerness in the brown faces of his companions as they
spread out the papers on which they had, in their own crude fashion,
set down a record of the winter's happenings. Tautuk's voice, slow and
very deliberate in its unfailing effort to master English without a
slip, had in it a subdued note of satisfaction and triumph, while Amuk
Toolik, who was quick and staccato in his manner of speech, using
sentences seldom of greater length than three or four words, and who
picked up slang and swear-words like a parrot, swelled with pride as he
lighted his pipe, and then rubbed his hands with a rasping sound that
always sent a chill up Alan's back.
"A ver' fine and prosper' year," said Tautuk in response to Alan's first
question as to general conditions.
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