Look here--" He opened his pocket atlas again at the map of the world.

"Where did you start from, and where did you come ashore?
If we can get at the beginning of the thing--" She had bent her head over the crook of his arm, so that in her eager scrutiny of the map his lips for a moment or two touched the velvety softness of her hair.

Again he felt the exquisite thrill of her touch, the throb of her body against him, the desire to take her in his arms and hold her there.

And then she drew back a little, and her finger was once more tracing out its story on the map.

The ship had started from the mouth of the Lena River, in Siberia, and had followed the coast to the blue space that marked the ocean above Alaska.