“I’ll find a way of seeing what he’s made of his job.” Cheviot seemed to ratify some arrangement. Then turning to Hildegarde: “And I’ll follow you in the first ship.” “Follow? Can’t you go and get back in a week?” “I might, if there should happen to be a boat.” He was touchingly pleased at Hildegarde’s unwillingness to go home without him. Quite suddenly she remembered O’Gorman’s loud-voiced friend of the whaler. “I’ve got an inspiration,” she said gaily. “Why shouldn’t we all three go up to Polaris in the bark _Beluga_? Yes, yes, that whaler alongside is going north in a day or two. Now, don’t say it’s impossible till you see.” Quickly she outlined a delightful plan. They could all come back in one of the boats waiting about in Grantley Harbor. Or why shouldn’t they (after they’d attended to the Mother Lode), why shouldn’t they go in the _Beluga_ as far as Kotzebue? Nobody realized in the very least, she said, her immense interest in all this queer northern world. And after what she’d gone through to get here, they wanted to forbid her Nome! Adroitly she spoke, as though their success were still a matter of doubt. _If_ she didn’t see Nome, oh, how she’d be laughed at in Valdivia! But _if_ she didn’t, why shouldn’t she be a little compensated for so huge a disappointment? But that wasn’t the main consideration. How could anybody expect her to go away in this very same horrible boat that had brought her, and go _without_ Louis? Was her father grown so hard-hearted up here as to expect to part them when they’d only just found each other? Half-smiling, but serious enough in reality, as Mar could see, she pleaded for her plan. Louis was plainly a convert, though he did say in a feeble and highly unconvinced fashion, that if he hadn’t used up all his credit with her on the subject of travel, he’d point out that the accommodation on board these coasting vessels— “Oh, _don’t_ be so careful of me—you two!” she wailed. “The reasons why I mustn’t see Nome surely don’t apply to Polaris. Why mayn’t I have a look at that miraculous Mother Lode? Besides, Polaris! why, that’s where Blumpitty’s hermit lives! Dearest father, I’ve been dying to see the hermit. Was it he who told you, too, where to get claims?” “Certainly not. I wouldn’t go near the imposter! Living on people’s greedy hopes. That’ll come to an end, too, some fine day!” “Well, if it hasn’t come to an end yet, you won’t mind my seeing him, will you, dearest? It isn’t just idle curiosity. You really ought to sympathize a little. I must have got it from you—all this interest in the North, that we used to think was left out of the rest of the family. Don’t you remember, I never wondered at the hold it had on you? Even when I was quite little—” She pulled herself up suddenly, with an anxious glance at Cheviot’s averted face. But he turned briskly at that first pause and said: “I’ll leave you to butter the parsnips, Hildegarde, while I tackle the captain.”