could imagine that some Spanish buccaneer, pausing at this desolate
island to hide his gold, had become her father.

She asked him into an igloo and made tea for him, talking all the while
in broken English. She had learned the language, she told him, from the
whalers. She spoke cheerfully and answered his questions frankly. Yes,
his two friends had been here. They had gone, perhaps; she did not know.
Yes, he might cross to Cape Prince of Wales in safety she thought. But
Johnny had the feeling that her mind was filled with the dread of some
impending catastrophe which perhaps he might help avert.

And at last the revelation came. Lighting a fresh cigaret, she leaned
back among the deer skins and spoke. "The men of the village," she said,
"you have not asked me about them."

"Thought they were hunting," replied Johnny.

"Hunting, no!" she exclaimed. "Boiling hooch."

Johnny knew in a moment what she meant. "Hooch" was whisky, moonshine.
Many times he had heard of this vicious liquor which the Eskimos and
Chukches concocted by boiling sourdough, made of molasses, flour and
yeast.

The girl told him frankly of the many carouses that had taken place
during the winter, of the deaths that had resulted from it, of the
shooting of her only brother by a drink-crazed native.

Johnny listened in silence. That she told it all without apparent
emotion did not deceive him. Hooch was being brewed now. She wished it