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Blue Envelope

<h2 id="id00508" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER VII</h2> <h5 id="id00509">THE BLUE ENVELOPE DISAPPEARS</h5> When Marian heard the voice outside the cabin on the wreck, she realized that a new problem, a whole set of new problems had arisen. Here was a man. Who was he? Could he be the grizzled miner who had demanded the blue envelope? If so, what then? Was there more than one man? What was to come of it all, anyway? All this sped through her mind while she was drawing on her parka. The next moment she had opened the door, stepped out and closed the door behind her. "Ah! I have the pleasure—" "You?" Marian gasped. For a second she could say no more. Before her, dressed in a jaunty parka of Siberian squirrel-skin, was her frank-faced college boy, he of the Phi Beta Ki. "Why, yes," he said rather awkwardly, "it is I. Does it seem so strange? Well, yes, I dare say it does. Suppose you sit down and I'll tell you about it." Marian sat down on a section of the broken rail. "Well, you see," he began, a quizzical smile playing about his lips, "when I had completed my—my—well, my mission to the north of Cape Prince of Wales, it was too late to return by dog-team. I waited for a boat. I arrived at the P. O. you used to keep. You were gone. So was my letter." "Yes, you said—" "That was quite all right; the thing I wanted you to do. But you see that letter is mighty important. I had to follow. This craft we're sitting on was coming this way. I took passage. She ran into a mess of bad luck. First we were picked up by an ice-floe and carried far into the Arctic Ocean. When at last we poled our way out of that, we were caught by a storm and carried southwest with such violence that we were thrown upon this sandbar. The ship broke up some, but we managed to stick to her until the weather calmed. We went ashore and threw some of the wreckage into the form of a cabin. You've been staying there, I guess." He grinned. Marian nodded. "Well, the ship was hopeless. Natives came in their skin-boats from East Cape." "East Cape? How far—how far is that?" "Perhaps ten miles. Why?" He studied the girl's startled face. "Nothing; only didn't a white man come with the natives?" "A white man?" "I've heard there was one staying there." "No, he didn't come." Marian settled back in her seat. "Well," he went on, "the captain of this craft traded everything on board to the natives for furs; everything but some food. I bought that from him. You see, they were determined to get away as soon as possible. I was just as determined to stay. I didn't know exactly where you were, but was bound I'd find you and—and the letter." He paused. "By the way," he said, struggling to conceal his intense interest, "have—have you the letter?" Marian nodded. "It is in my paint-box over in the cabin." The boy sprang eagerly to his feet. "May we not go fetch it?" "I can't leave my friend." "Then may I go?" He was eager as a child. Then after a second, "Why, by Jove! I'm selfish. Haven't given you a chance to say a thing. Perhaps your friend's in trouble. Of course she is, or she'd be out here before this. What is it? Can I help you?" "She's only chilled and recovering from a trifling shock. The tidal wave threw her into the sea." "Oh!" The boy stood thinking for a moment. "Do—do you intend to remain in Siberia all winter?" "We had no such intentions when we came, but the storm and the white line caught us. No more boats now." "The white line of ice from the north? No more boats this season?" Then quickly, "Say, you two can keep my cabin. The shack on the beach is poor, and I dare say you haven't much food. There's a bunk below the deck where I can be quite comfortable. We'll be snug as a bug in a bushel basket." Marian lifted a hand in feeble protest. What was the use? They were trapped in Siberia. Here was an American who seemed at least to be a friend. "I'll go for your things. You stay here. Any dogs?" "Three." "Good! I'll be back quicker than you think." He was away. Bounding from ice-cake to ice-cake he soon disappeared. Marian turned to enter the cabin. Lucile was still asleep. Marian sat down to think. She was not certain that their position was at all improved. They knew so little of the young stranger. She felt almost resentful at his occupation of the wireless cabin. They could have been quite cozy there alone. Then again, in quite another mood, she was glad the stranger was here; he might suggest a means of escape from the exile and might assist in carrying it out. At any rate, if they were forced to go to East Cape for food, they would not be afraid to go under his guard. She fell to wondering if he had reached the shore safely. Leaving the cabin, she climbed to the highest point on the rail. There she stood for some time scanning the horizon. "Strange he'd be way down there!" she murmured, at last. "Quarter of a mile south of the cabin. Perhaps the ice carried him south." The distance was so great she could distinguish a figure, a mere speck, moving in and out among the ice-piles that lined the shore. For a moment she rested her eyes by studying the ship's deck. Then again she gazed away. "Why," she exclaimed suddenly, "he has reached the cabin! Must have run every step of the way!" In the cabin on shore, the young stranger began packing the girl's possessions preparatory to putting them on the sled. "Some careless housekeeper!" he grumbled as he gathered up articles of clothing from every corner of the room, and, having straightened out Marian's paint-box, closed its cover down with a click. He arrived at the schooner an hour later. The sled load was soon stowed away in the wireless cabin. He brought a quantity of food, canned vegetables, bacon, hardtack, coffee and sugar from his store below. Then he stood by the door. Marian was bustling about the cabin, putting things to rights. "Wants to make a good impression," was the young man's mental comment. Lucile, a trifle pale, was sitting in the corner. Presently Marian caught sight of him standing there. "Oh!" she exclaimed, "you are waiting for your reward?" "Any time," he smiled. "You shall have it right now—the blue envelope." She seized her paint-box, and throwing back the cover lifted the paint-tray. Then from her lips escaped one word: "Gone!" He sprang eagerly forward. "Can't be," Lucile breathed. "Take a good look," the boy suggested. Marian inspected the box thoroughly. "No," she said with an air of finality, "it's not here." "Your—er—the paint-box was a bit disarranged," he stammered. "Disarranged?" "Well, not in the best of order. Letter might have dropped out in the cabin. I dare say it's on the floor back there. Had you seen it lately?" "Only this morning. I can't understand about the box. The wind must have blown it down, or something." "I dare say." The boy smiled good-naturedly as he recalled the disordered room. "I'll hop right back and look for it." He was away like a flash. It was with a very dejected air that he returned. Marian could not tell whether it was genuine or feigned. Had he been in such haste to secure the letter that he had taken it at once from the box? Was all his later action mere stage-play? "No," he said, bringing forth a forlorn smile, "I couldn't find it. It's not there." That evening, after a supper served on a small tip-down table in the wireless cabin, after the boy had gone to his bunk below, and Lucile had fallen asleep, Marian lay awake a long time puzzling over the mysteries of the past and the problems of the future. Where had the blue envelope disappeared to? Did the boy have it? She resolved to search the cabin on the beach for herself. She felt half-inclined to talk matters over frankly with him. There were mysteries which might be cleared up. She remembered with what astonishing speed he had reached the cabin once he had sprung upon the shore. She remembered, too, how he had spoken of the disordered paint-box. She prided herself on neatness. And that paint-box, was it not her work-shop, her most prized possession? She longed to talk it over with him. But on the other hand, she could not bring herself to feel that her trust in him was fully warranted. She hated above all things to be "taken in." If she discussed all these things with him, and if, at the same time, the letter rested in his pocket, wouldn't she be taken in for fair? Wouldn't she, though? "No," she pressed her lips tight shut, "no, I won't." But even as she said this, she saw again the downhearted expression on his face, heard his mournful, "I couldn't find it. It's not there." With that she relented, and ere she slept resolved to take up the matter of the mysterious disappearance with him the first thing in the morning. But morning found the boy in quite a different mood. He laughed and chatted gayly over his sour-dough pancakes. "Now you know," he said, as he shoved back his stool, "I like your company awfully well, and I'd like to keep this up indefinitely, but truth is I can't; I've got to get across the Straits." "We'll be sorry to lose you," laughed Marian; "but just you run along. And when you get there tell the missionary breakfast is ready. Ask him to step over and eat with us." "No, but I'm serious." "Then you're crazy. No white man has ever crossed thirty-five miles of floeing ice." "There's always to be a first. Natives do it, don't they?" "I've heard they do." "I can go anywhere a native can, providing he doesn't get out of my sight." "A guide across the Straits! It's a grand idea!" Marian seized Lucile about the waist and went hopping out on deck. "A guide across the Straits. We'll be home for Christmas dinner yet!" "What, you don't mean—" The boy stared in astonishment. "Sure I do. We can go anywhere you can, providing you don't get out of our sight." "That—why, that will be bully." He said this with lagging enthusiasm. It was evident that he doubted their power of endurance. "We'll have to go to East Cape to start," he suggested. "East Cape?" Marian exclaimed in a startled tone. "Sure. What's wrong with East Cape?" "Nothing. Only—only that's where that strange white man is." "What's so terrible about him?" Marian hesitated. She had come to the end of a blind alley. Should she tell him of her experience with the miner who demanded the blue envelope, and of her suspicion that this man at East Cape was that same man? She looked into his frank blue eyes for a moment, then said to herself, "Yes, I will." She did tell him the whole story. When she had finished, there was a new, a very friendly light in the boy's eyes. "I say," he exclaimed, "That was bully good of you. It really was. That man—" He hesitated. Marian thought she was going to be told the whole secret of the blue envelope. "That man," he repeated, "he won't hurt you. You need have no fear of him. As for yours truly, meaning me, I can take care of myself. We start for East Cape today. What say?" "All right." Marian sprang to her feet, and, after imparting the news to Lucile, who had by this time fully recovered from the shock of the previous day, set to work packing their sled for the journey. All the time she was packing her mind was working. She had meant to discuss the mysterious disappearance of the blue envelope with the college boy. Even as she thought of this, there flashed through her mind the question, "Why is he so cheerful now? Why so anxious to get across the Straits?" One explanation alone came to her. He had deceived them. The envelope was secure in his possession. It had imparted to him news of great importance. He was eager to cross the Straits and put its instructions into execution. What these instructions might be, she could not tell. The North was a place of rare furs, ivory and much gold. Anything was possible. "No," she almost exploded between tight-set teeth, "no, I won't talk it over with him, I won't." One thing, however, she did do. Under pretense of missing some article from her wardrobe when on the beach ready to start for East Cape, she hastened to the cabin on the beach, and executed a quick search for the missing envelope. The search was unrewarded. One thing, though, arrested her attention for a moment. As she left the cabin she noticed, near the door, the print of a man's skin-boot in the snow. It was an exceedingly large print; such as is made by a careless white man who buys the first badly-made skin-boots offered to him by a native seamstress. The college boy could not have made that track. His skin-boots had been made by some Eskimo woman of no mean ability. She had fitted them to his high-arched and shapely feet, as she might have done had he been her Eskimo husband. "Oh, well," she exclaimed, as she raced to join her companions, "probably some native who has passed this way." Even as she said it, she doubted her own judgment. She had never in her life seen a native wear such a clumsy and badly-shaped skin-boot. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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