With the keen pleasure of a child she explored the heaps, selecting here a broken knife, there a discarded kettle, and again some other utensil which would help her in setting up a convenient kitchen.

But it was as she made her way back to her camp that she received the greatest shock.  Suddenly, as she rounded a cake of ice, she came upon a man sprawled upon the ice, as if dead.  The girl took no chances.  In the land whence she came, it was not considered possible that this man should die.  She sprang between two up-ended cakes, and from this shelter studied him cautiously.  Yes, there was no mistaking him; it was the Russian.  A slight movement of one arm told her he was not dead.  Whether he was unconscious or was sleeping she could not tell.

Presently, after tying her dagger to her waist by a rawhide cord, she crept silently forward.  An ear inclined toward his face told her that he was breathing regularly; he was sleeping the torpid sleep of one worn by exhaustion, exposure and starvation.

Ever so gently she touched him.  He did not move.  Then, with one hand on her dagger, she felt his clothing, as if searching for some object hidden in his fur garments.  Her touch was light as a feather, yet she appeared to have a wonderful sense of location in the tips of those small, slender fingers.

Once the man moved and groaned.  Light as a leaf she sprang away, the dagger gleaming in her hand.  There were reasons why she did not wish to kill that man; other reasons than the fact that she was a woman and shrank from slaying, and yet she was in a perilous position.  Should it come to a choice between killing him or suffering herself, she would kill him.

Again the man’s body relaxed in slumber.  Again she glided to his side and continued her search.  When at last she straightened up, it was with a look of despair.  The thing she sought was not there.

When the Russian awoke some time later it was with the feeling that he had been prodded in the side.  The first sensation to greet him after that was the savory smell of cooked meat.  Unable to believe his senses, he opened his eyes and sat up.  Before him was a tin pan partly filled with strips of reddish-brown meat and squares of fried fat.  The dish was still hot.

Like a dog that fears to have his food snatched from him, he glared about him and a sort of snarl escaped his lips.  Then he fell upon the food and ate it ravenously.  With the last morsel in his hand, he looked about him for signs of the human being who had befriended him.  But in his eye was no sign of gratitude, rather the reverse—­a burning fire of suspicion and hate lurked in their sullen depths.  His gaze finally rested for a moment on the meat in his hand.  Then his face blanched.  The meat had been neatly cut by an instrument keen as a razor.

* * * * *