But the others were not listening. Their faces were stamped with a look of bewilderment. The station wagon seemed to be standing still. The world was rushing by. “Wait a minute!” Bridie yelled. “What’s happening!”

Gently Thor said, “Stop a minute, Norman, will you?” The station wagon shivered to a standstill. The world rushed by even faster than before. They were on the beach path, and Thor pointed toward the ice-packed water.

“Why, Bridie! And you, too, Chris. You ought to know. You’ve seen the spring breakup often enough. Here it’s later and bigger and swifter. That’s the ice going out. Now that we’re standing still you can see it isn’t the globe that’s whirling. It’s rushing down from the Arctic to the Bering Sea. Did you ever see a current like that? You never will, anywhere. If you were to hop one of those big ice plateaus whirling past us there, you’d get a free ride to Nome in no time—if you stayed on.”

Norman Raffsky, sitting moodily at the wheel, now spoke for the first time.

“We have a night club,” he said, icily, “and a movie, and the barbershop has a man who does women’s hair. Every girl in Oogruk has a permanent. The Dew Line gang is coming in next month, they’ll be here years. Engineers. Mechanics. Carpenters. Truckers. Cat-skinners.” He started the car again, it leaped into the air like a bronco spurred. “Traffic lights!” His voice rose above the engine’s snarl.

“No!” Thor roared. Then, “That’s good. That’s good. At least, I hope it’s good.”

The car rounded a slight curve and stopped with a final snort and rattle, before a neat white-painted two-story building. Oogruk’s skyscraper. In large black letters the sign painted on the front read:

RAFFSKY’S HOTEL
AND
TRADING POST

“But it isn’t a trading post at all!” Chris protested. “It’s as big as the Pole Star Hotel back home, and better-looking. I thought it would be a log cabin, with wolves howling outside.”

“You sound like a tourist, Christine,” Thor said, almost crossly for him.

Birdie stepped gingerly out into the blinding late-June sunshine, the icy late-June air. A woman from Mars, on Fifth Avenue, could not have seemed more incongruous than this modish matron in the midst of Oogruk’s bleak wastes. She straightened her hat, wrapped her coat more firmly about her.

“I’ve known Isador Raffsky for thirty-five years. The only wolves around his place are the skins he’s bought from the trappers. He’s come to the Pole Star Hotel every spring for all that time, till just lately.” She turned to Norman Raffsky, silent, remote in the front seat. “Why’n’t you ever come with your father, see a little city life and bright lights?”

Christine, waiting for his reply, found herself fitting adjectives to this young man, and discarding them.

“City life does not interest me,” Norman said.

The Roller Polars’ anguished faces peered through the car window. “I wish we were staying here at this place,” they pleaded. “We’d rather stay here with you folks.” Norman threw the car into gear. “No room.” Then, over his shoulder to Thor, “Back with your bags in a minute.” He drove on.