and Banks piped his strained note. "And," he said after a moment, "of
course you kept on to that missionary camp and waited for the fog to
lift."

Tisdale shook his head. "After that supper, there wasn't any need; I
turned back to the glacier. And before I reached the landing, I heard
Weatherbee's voice booming out on the thick silence like a siren at sea;
piloting me straight to that one dip in the ice-wall."

He looked off again to the end of the room, absently, with the far-sighted
gaze of one accustomed to travel great solitudes. It was as though he
heard again that singing voice. Then suddenly his expression changed. His
eyes had rested on a Kodiak bearskin that hung against a pillar at the top
of the gallery steps. The corner was unlighted, in heavy shadow, but a
hand reaching from behind had drawn the rug slightly aside, and its
whiteness on the brown fur, the flash of a jewelled ring, caught his
attention. The next moment the hand was withdrawn. He gave it no more
thought then, but a time came afterward when he remembered it.

"Weatherbee had noticed that fog-bank," he went on, "from high up the
glacier. It worried him so he finally turned back to meet me, and he had
waited so long he was down to his last biscuit. I was mighty reckless
about that second ptarmigan, but the water the birds were cooked in made a
fine soup. And the fog broke, and we overtook the Tlinket and supplies the
next morning."

There was another stir along the table, then Foster said: "That was a
great voice of Weatherbee's. I've seen it hearten a whole crowd on a mean
trail, like the bugle and fife of a regiment."