Who was this stranger who traveled so far?  Johnny had a feeling that he was at the moment hiding in this native village, and that this was the reason his two companions did not wish to proceed.  There had grown up between these two, the Eskimo boy and the Japanese girl, a strange friendship.  At times Johnny had suspicions that this friendship had existed before they had met on the tundra.  However that might have been, they seemed now to be working in unison.  Only the day before he had happened to overhear them conversing in low tones, and the language, he would have sworn, was neither Eskimo, English, nor Pidgen.  Yet he did not question the boy’s statement that he was an American Eskimo.  Indeed there were times when the flash of his honest smile made Johnny believe that they had met somewhere in America.  On his trip to Nome and Fairbanks before the war, Johnny had met many Eskimos, and had boxed and wrestled with some of the best of them.

“Oh, well,” he sighed, and stretched himself, “’tain’t that I’ve got a string on ’em, nor them on me.  I’ll have to wait or go on alone, that’s all.”

He entered the igloo, and tried again to become interested in his book, but his mind kept returning to the strange friendship which had grown up between the three of them, Iyok-ok, the Jap girl and himself.  The Jap girl had proved a good sport indeed.  She might have ridden all the time, but she walked as far in a day as they did.  She cooked their meals cheerfully, and laughed over every mishap.

So they had traveled northward.  Three happy children in a great white wilderness, they pitched their igloos at night, a small one for the girl, a larger one for the two men, and, burying themselves beneath the deer skins, had slept the dreamless sleep of children, wearied from play.

The Jap girl had appeared to be quite content to be going into an unknown wilderness.  Only once she had seemed concerned.  That was when a long detour had taken them from the track of the unknown traveler, but her cheerfulness had returned once they had come upon his track again.  This had set Johnny speculating once more.  Who was this stranger?  Was he related to the girl in some way?  Was he her friend or her foe?  Was he really in this village at this time?  If so, why did she not seek him out?  If a friend, why did she not join him; and, if an enemy, why not have him killed?  Surely, here they were quite beyond the law.

Oh, yes, Johnny might get a dog team and go on up the coast alone, but Johnny liked his two traveling companions too well for that, and besides, Johnny dearly loved mysteries, and here was a whole nest of them.  No, Johnny would wait.

The seal oil lamps imparted a drowsy warmth to the igloo.  The deer skins were soft and comfortable.  Johnny grew sleepy.  Throwing the ragged old book in the corner, he stretched out full length on the skins, which lay in the irregular circle of light, and was soon fast asleep.