Mar’s eyes looked over the little boy’s head into space. “No settlements. Beyond the creek, barren hills to the north. No hope that way. East and west the tundra stretched to the horizon line level as the ocean. No hope right or left. He turned round and saw off there to the south the coast where he’d been wrecked, and the sand-spit the Esquimaux were making ready to leave, and beyond that, against the horizon—what was that! He nearly fell off the rock. For a two-masted schooner was lying a couple of miles off the shore. Two masts! It flashed over him those were the two poles he’d seen sticking up above the tundra, several hours before. Well, he got down off that rock double quick, and he nearly killed himself tearing back to the coast, and signaling the ship. He was only just in time—they were weighing anchor.” “Well,” said Jack, with a long breath of relief, “it _was_ a good fing he climbed vat funny hill!” “Y—yes,” said Nathaniel Mar. His tone was hardly satisfactory. “Didn’t he get back to his fwiends all wight?” “Oh, yes, he got back all right.” “What did vey say when he told vem about ve gold?” “He didn’t tell anybody about that just then.” “Why not?” “If he had, somebody might have rushed there and cleaned the whole creek out, before he had a chance.” “Oh! How soon did he go back?” “He—he didn’t go.” Jack sat there wide-eyed. “W—why didn’t he?” [Illustration: “Mar’s eyes looked over the little boy’s head into space”] “Well, you see, he had a pretty bad time with that leg of his.” “Oh, it was his leg, was it?” “A—yes—his leg. He kept waiting for the doctors to cure it. Instead of curing it they kept cutting off little bits of it.” “Ow! Well—and after vat, when it _did_ get well.” “It didn’t.” “And was he lame always, like you?” “Something like me.” “Why didn’t _he_ get a store leg, too?” “He did, I believe—ultimately.” “And wasn’t it any good?” “It wasn’t quite the same as the one he’d lost.” “Oh, no.” Jack realized that, with a creep down his back. He could still feel the dreadful touch of it on his fingers. “But I suppose he sent somebody else up after vat gold?” “N-no.” “Well, what _did_ he do?” “He—he got married.” “Oh—h. And after vat?” “Then he got a post of some sort—not easy to get, still harder to leave.” “And—” “And then he got some children. Oh, he was always getting things, that fellow! Once it was intermittent fever. Anyhow he had to stay where he was.” “Ven who got ve gold?” “Nobody. Not yet.” “Ve gold is waitin’ vere now?” Jack jumped to his feet with dancing eyes. “So—a—so he says.” “Oh—_oh_!” Then with an air of fiery impatience: “What you say vat man’s doin’ now?” “He—well—I understand he’s hanging on to that post.” “Hangin’ on a post!” Jack colored as Mar laughed, and added hurriedly, “Just waitin’ to see if vat leg won’t get better, I s’pose.” “Waiting for—several things.” Jack came closer. “Oh, _doesn’t_ he mean to never mind his leg, and go back some day?”