Johnny's reveries were cut short and he started suddenly to his feet. A
pebble had dropped squarely upon the deer skin spread out before him. It
had come through the hole in the peak of the igloo. He glanced quickly
up, but saw nothing.

Then he grinned. "Just a case of nerves, I guess. Some kids playing on
the cliff. Anyway, I'll investigate," he said to himself.

Throwing back the deerskin flap, he stepped outside. Did he see a boot
disappear around the point of the cliff above the igloo? He could not
tell. At any rate, there was no use wasting more time on the question.
To see farther around the cliff, one must climb up its rough face, and
by that time any mischief maker might have disappeared.

Yet Johnny stood there worried and puzzled. Twice in the last hour
pebbles had rattled down upon the igloo, and now one had dropped inside.
An old grievance stirred him: Why were not he and his strange
companions on their way? With only four hundred miles to travel to East
Cape, with a splendid trail, with reindeer well fed and rested, it
seemed folly to linger in this native village. The reindeer Chukches,
whose sled deer they had borrowed, might be upon them at any moment, and
that, Johnny felt sure, would result in an unpleasant mixup. Yet he had
been utterly unable to get the little Oriental girl and Iyok-ok to go
on. Why? He could only guess. There were a great many other things he
could only guess at. The little Oriental girl's reason for going so far
into the wilderness was as much a secret as ever. He could only guess
that it had to do with the following of that mysterious driver of a dog
team. With unerring precision this man had pushed straight on northward
toward East Cape and Behring Strait. And they had followed, not, so far
as Johnny was concerned, because they were interested in him, but