Rumor had coupled her name with that of the hero of the hour, the discoverer of the pole,[1] and with the foreecho of wedding bells. Several times the subject was mentioned to her by the captain himself. He found the girl strangely silent on the matter that, before their trip to the south he had considered was almost settled. She did not speed his wooing, and he was too busy a man for the time to try and regain his lost advantage. [Footnote 1: The South Pole was actually discovered by Roald Amundsen in 1911, a fact which the editors feel it is necessary to mention in deference to the great explorer. The discrepancy need not detract from the value of the great fantasy of the snow-country.] Dinners, receptions, fetes, and the lecture platform made continual demands on him, and then the summons came to go to Washington and lay the proofs of his polar discovery before the savants of the National Geographic Society. Nearly a month had worn away since the Felix docked when Scoland journeyed to the Capital to place in the hands of the gray and critical members of the society the data of his explorations, that should fix him for all time in the firmament of famous discoverers--first man to stand at the southern pole. * * * * * More than two hours after he left the side of the Felix, Polaris propelled his little craft into an angle at the side of a long, low building that lay close to the harbor shore. He reached up, and his fingers hooked over a stone edge. Softly he drew himself up and over. He stood for the first time on the soil of his father's country. With many a close escape from the wheels of ferries and the noses of propellers of other craft, of which a bewildering number were moving, even at that hour, but without being seen of any man, he had made the passage of the harbor. It was no mean accomplishment of itself. He was both weary and hungry after the toil. The second need must wait for a while. He saw near him the shrubbery of a little park. He crawled into the bushes and fell asleep. Some three hours later, the dawn light shone revealingly on the soles of his bare feet, thrust from under the bush. They caught the eye of a policeman who was good-naturedly clearing the park of its "boarders." He investigated. The appearance of the man who owned the feet was so different from that of the ordinary "vag" habitués of the park, that the bluecoat decided he must "run him in." Still sleepy and only half understanding, Polaris went meekly with the policeman. He knew that he was in the hands of a representative of the law of America, a law that his father had taught him must be reverenced and obeyed in all its manifestations. With every instant unfolding to him a new wonder--from the startling height of a many-storied skyscraper to a belated messenger boy puffing at a cigarette--he was haled to a nearby station-house.