The rich notes of a robin saluted her from the birch wood, and opened
her ears to the day. A partridge boomed afar in the forest, and a
tree-squirrel launched unerringly into space above her head, and went
on, from limb to limb and tree to tree, scolding graciously the while.
From the hidden river rose the shouts of the toiling adventurers,
already parted from sleep and fighting their way towards the Pole.
Frona arose, shook back her hair, and took instinctively the old path
between the trees to the camp of Chief George and the Dyea tribesmen.
She came upon a boy, breech-clouted and bare, like a copper god. He
was gathering wood, and looked at her keenly over his bronze shoulder.
She bade him good-morning, blithely, in the Dyea tongue; but he shook
his head, and laughed insultingly, and paused in his work to hurl
shameful words after her. She did not understand, for this was not the
old way, and when she passed a great and glowering Sitkan buck she kept
her tongue between her teeth. At the fringe of the forest, the camp
confronted her. And she was startled. It was not the old camp of a
score or more of lodges clustering and huddling together in the open as
though for company, but a mighty camp. It began at the very forest,
and flowed in and out among the scattered tree-clumps on the flat, and
spilled over and down to the river bank where the long canoes were
lined up ten and twelve deep.
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