“That’s impossible. He’s much too sensible and clever.” “What good is it to be sensible and clever if you’ve got nothing to eat?” “But being sensible and clever will help him to find things to eat.” “How do you make that out?” “Oh, as far south as that—” As far _south_? Was she out of her mind? “There are plenty of ptarmigan and rabbits and things, where Mr. Mar is.” “Are there? But he’s lame. How can he go shooting—” “Other people can, especially the natives, and you may be sure your father will have his share. Besides, he’ll fish. Mr. Mar’ll like that part of it.” “How _can_ you be so heartless!” “What do you mean?” “How is my father to fish in rivers frozen hard as iron?” “Through holes in the ice, of course!” Bella defended the idea warmly. “You’ll see,” she spoke as if she’d personally tested the efficacy of the device; “you’ll see they’ll get fish all winter that way.” “How _do_ you know? Now don’t say you get it out of the newspapers, for I never see these things, and I look for nothing else.” “No, I found that in a book.” “What book?” It turned out to be a two-year-old volume upon Arctic Exploration. On the fly-leaf Bella’s name and the date, 1896. A whole year before Cheviot went to the Klondike, or Mr. Mar to Alaska. The year that— The light that had glimmered broke in a flood. “Let us read it together, Bella,” said Hildegarde softly. “No, there’s a newer one I’ve just sent for. We’ll read that if you like.” They finished it at the Waynes’ country place. “I wish,” said Hildegarde, “we had another book about—” “There are plenty more.” Bella unlocked a little chest. It was full of nothing but books, and the books were about nothing but arctic life and exploration. For nearly two years, Bella had been buying and reading everything she could hear of published on the subject in America or Europe. Hildegarde hung above the store. “We must go through them all together. It is the most fascinating reading in the world.” “It is the most horrible in the world. The most ghastly, it makes you ill. But, yes; I agree with you one can’t _not know_.” They read the books together. Even the honest-hearted Hildegarde, who began with her father agonizingly present in her mind, abandoned him presently to his probably less terrible fate, and pushed forward with strange men on their farther journey; fitting each new fortune or mischance to the One on the other side of the world, never mentioned either by her or Bella. Though Hildegarde kept her oath not to speak Galbraith’s name, she felt a strange new excitement now in saying “He” as for her father, yet thinking of the One who had gone farther afield even than Cheviot, and much, much farther than Mr. Mar. Each girl played with the ruse. It gave to reading and speculation a subtilty—a spirit—that never flagged.