They were in the big over-heated shed that served Barrow as an airport shelter. Aside from its physical crudeness it seemed to be little different from every other Alaska airport or, for that matter, any airport in the world. Men, women, children. White. Brown. The aroma of coffee steaming somewhere. Three people only wore hats and city coats—Bridie and the two Roller Polars. And even now the Polars were shrugging themselves gratefully into the Company parkas that an attendant had offered them. Alwin Polar retained his beret under the parka hood. His spectacled face and Irma Polar’s lean visage bedizened with the mammoth dangling earrings peered out from the hoods’ shelter like the faces of ancient happy babies.

“I love it!” Irma Polar declared. “I feel like a native. Now one of you’ve got to take my picture with Mr. Polar in this getup. They’ll die back east.”

Two jet pilots, pink-cheeked, incredibly boyish, were standing over a box that was being opened under some protest by a round-faced spectacled Eskimo. “I’m not supposed to open it here,” the Eskimo was saying.

“Oh, come on,” the pilots said. “We’re going out. Tell ’em we asked you to, it’ll be O.K.”

Bridie clutched Thor’s arm. “I bet it’s some secret explosive or something for that radar stuff,” she whispered. “I’m going to speak to them.”

“Now, Bridie,” Thor remonstrated. “We’re leaving, look, the bus is waiting for us.”

The two pilots were standing over the box, their faces tense. Bridie, elaborately casual, sauntered toward them. The handsome coat and hat, the paradoxically shrewd yet guileless face, the gray hair, the sparkling blue eyes, made a familiar pattern to these young air gods. The motherly protective type. They had battled it in a hundred USOs.

“You boys ever flown over the North Pole?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’d like to go some time.”

“I’d be glad to take you, ma’am,” one of them said. The other seemed more intent on the contents of the box. “Only we’re not allowed passengers.”

Bridie beamed on him. “I was saying, there must be something real important in that box, you’re standing over it and all. Can I watch?”

“Why, sure, ma’am.” They had caught sight of Chris as she and Thor now joined their out-of-hand traveling companion.

“Come on now, Bridie.”

“Minute.”

The Eskimo had thrust both hands into the opened box, he now held up two slim oblong packages covered with bright paper, one yellow, one scarlet. “You got to pay for them,” he said.

“Well sure, what do you think!” one of them replied in an injured tone. “Let me see.” He took a box in either hand, he read the labels aloud. “This is Chocolate Fig Crunchies and this one’s Marshmallow Maple Rounds. Which do you want, Bowk?”

For a moment indecision aged their unlined faces. “How much are they?”

“Seventy-five cents apiece,” the Eskimo said, firmly.

“Any twofers?”

“Nope.”

“Well,” resignedly, “we’ll both take both. Gosh! Four times—and carry the two—it’s robbery up here—only a quarter back home—come on, Bowk.” They clumped in their heavy gear out of the door and made swiftly for the runway.