“Oh, my land, Thor!” Bridie exclaimed.

“You wait, Bridie. It may not be the Ice Palace but it’s good and it’s clean, and the best homemade bread in Alaska.”

“Talk up louder, will you, Mr. Storm!” Irma Polar huddled at the far end of the bus. “We sat here because we thought it would be warmer, but Mr. Polar and I can’t hear a word you say.” Then a shriek, echoed and redoubled by Bridie as the bus plunged through water.

Reassuringly Thor raised his voice above the clamor and the splashing. “It’s all right. We’re just crossing the creek, we’ll be on the other side in a minute. There’ll be a Company guide waiting for you at the Rest House, Mrs. Polar. She’ll show you Barrow in style. A nice college girl and smart as they come.”

“We’d rather have you.”

“These days there isn’t quite enough of me to go round. But I thank you, madam.”

“Now what did you mean by that, Thor Storm!” Bridie demanded. But they drew up now, with a final swirl, in front of the stark wooden house that was to shelter them. There on the steps was the Company guide, a hearty girl in parka and mukluks and no hat, who took over the Polars in a single gesture. You knew that by noon next day they would know Barrow from the 4-H Club and the Visiting Nurse Clinic to the Will Rogers-Wiley Post Memorial.

There, too, in the entrance, stood a nattily dressed Eskimo in dark-lensed sun goggles.

“Hello, George!” Thor called in greeting. “Bridie, this is George Sootuk. Mrs. Ballantyne. My granddaughter Christine.”

“How do you do,” the young man said, with enormous manner. “Never see you look so well year sometime, Mr. Storm.” He took from his parka pocket a notebook and a bright green pen which he clicked down with professional speed. “Mrs. and Miss, I stand here George Sootuk, am Barrow correspondent for newspaper Baranof Lode. What are you do here?”

“Tourists,” Bridie snapped, with a tinge of acid.

Christine decided to cover this with charm. As occasional pinch-hitting exchange editor armed with scissors and paste pot in the office of the Northern Light she had seen some of George Sootuk’s pidgin-English columns, terse, gossipy, outspoken, as they appeared under the heading of Arctic News. “I’ve always wanted to see Barrow. So fascinating. Grampa brought me up to Barrow—brought us up—because it’s an educational tour, too.”

It was baffling not to see George Sootuk’s eyes behind those black-lensed goggles. The brown face was impassive. “Ross Guildenstern punished for taking you up, penalize six weeks.”

Thor was stunned. “Where did you hear that nonsense, George?”

“Mukluk grapevine,” Sootuk said, cheerfully. “Barrow mukluk grapevine always true.”

“There it is, Thor,” Bridie said in a kind of terrible triumph.

An Eskimo woman of perhaps thirty came toward them down the hall.

“You girls run along and freshen up,” Thor said, quietly. “It’s nearly nine, we’d better have some dinner. Mrs. Awuna will show you your rooms, won’t you, Lorena? Mrs. Awuna is the manager.” He did not skimp the ceremony of introduction. Mrs. Awuna, in a crisp pink house dress and a permanent wave turned a sparkling gaze of appreciation on Bridie’s smart costume. “You look very nice,” she said in precise schoolgirl English.