word aboard ship. So you might return and prepare yourself and Peter for
a probable emergency."

She went out dumbly into the night, Blake seeing her to the door and
closing it after her. He was courteous in his icy way but did not offer
to escort her back to the ship. She was glad. Her heart was choking her
with hope and fear. She had measured him differently this time. And she
was afraid. She had caught a glimpse that had taken her beyond the man,
to the monster. It made her shudder. And yet what did it matter, if Blake
helped them?

She had forgotten Wapi. Now she found him again close at her side, and
she dropped a hand to his big head as she hurried back through the pallid
gloom. She spoke to him, crying out with sobbing breath what she had not
dared to reveal to Blake. For Wapi the long night had ceased to be a hell
of ghastly emptiness, and to her voice and the touch of her hand he
responded with a whine that was the whine of a white man's dog. They had
traveled two-thirds of the distance to the ship when he stopped in his
tracks and sniffed the wind that was coming from shore. A second time he
did this, and a third, and the third time Dolores turned with him and
faced the direction from which they had come. A low growl rose in Wapi's
throat, a snarl of menace with a note of warning in it.

"What is it, Wapi?" whispered Dolores. She heard his long fangs click,
and under her hand she felt his body grow tense. "What is it?" she
repeated.

A thrill, a suspicion, shot into her heart as they went on. A fourth time
Wapi faced the shore and growled before they reached the ship. Like
shadows they went up over the ice bridge. Dolores did not enter the cabin