She was contrite at once. “It was rude of me to come stalking into the dining room that way.”

They were walking down the beach path. They could hear the Eskimo drums now. The door of the Company Hall was open. A group whose ages ranged from six to sixty clustered there. Periodically they were shooed away by someone inside, immediately they returned. The dark faces were merry and unresentful.

“Why don’t they let them come in?” Chris wondered.

“Costs a dollar,” Thor said, “each. Eskimos don’t dance for nothing in the tourist season. They’ve caught on to civilization, right enough. After the dance has really started they’ll let these neighbors slip in free.”

Arctic daylight at night streaming through the unshaded windows, combined with the artificial glare of electric bulbs overhead, gave to the room an effect half eerie, half sordid. At the far end of the long room the Eskimo drummers sat cross-legged on the floor, the great flat circle of their walrus-tissue drums spread before them. Their voices rose and fell in a chant timed to the beat of the drums. In the center of the floor a group of men and women—twelve or more—were moving together in a slow mystic dance which each individual dancer seemed, nevertheless, to be performing solo. Though the air of the room was close the dancers wore fur and hooded parkas ornamented with intricate designs, and on their shifting feet were mukluks. The dancers were not, for the most part, young. A few perhaps were thirty or forty. Others looked seventy or more. Now and then a child of eight or ten would step into the rhythmically moving group.

“Hi!” There, to greet them, was Ross Guildenstern. By some miracle, or a native knowledge of short cuts, he had changed from his pilot’s uniform to khaki pants and leather jacket and was there at the hall ahead of them. “How about these seats? All right?”

“We’re only staying about half an hour,” Chris said, somewhat on the stately side. “Bridie’s tired, and Grampa has a lot of plans for tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow morning at nine you’re starting out with me.”

“Well, say!” boomed a familiar voice. “This is great! How you making out?” It was Alwin Polar of the Roller Polars, together with his gifted partner, still in the beflowered hat. But reason and the Arctic air had prevailed; she now wore over her pale blue coat a parka borrowed from the hotel guide. She and Bridie greeted each other like long-lost sisters. How you making out?… We’re real comfortable, I don’t say it’s any Waldorf, but you wouldn’t ask a nicer room … what they call shee-fish for dinner Mr. Polar isn’t much of a hand for fish but real tasty …

Alwin Polar clapped a hand on Ross’s shoulder. “Pardon me, ain’t you the young fellow on the plane? The pilot on our plane?”

“Yes.”

Polar looked intently at him, he stared at the faces of the dancers, the chanting drummers. “Say! I didn’t know you were—uh—you look different,” he finished, lamely. “It was the uniform, I guess.”