There were
seven, getting off at Cordova. Alan observed that the two girls watched
him closely and whispered together. They were very pretty, with large,
dark eyes and pink in their cheeks. One of the men did not look at him
at all, but sat cross-legged on the deck, with his face turned away.
With Stampede he went to the smoking-room, and until a late hour they
discussed the big range up under the Endicott Mountains, and Alan's
plans for the future. Once, early in the evening, Alan went to his cabin
to get maps and photographs. Stampede's eyes glistened as his mind
seized upon the possibilities of the new adventure. It was a vast land.
An unknown country. And Alan was its first pioneer. The old thrill ran
in Stampede's blood, and its infectiousness caught Alan, so that he
forgot Mary Standish, and all else but the miles that lay between them
and the mighty tundras beyond the Seward Peninsula. It was midnight when
Alan went to his cabin.
He was happy. Love of life swept in an irresistible surge through his
body, and he breathed in deeply of the soft sea air that came in through
his open port from the west. In Stampede Smith he had at last found the
comradeship which he had missed, and the responsive note to the wild and
half-savage desires always smoldering in his heart. He looked out at the
stars and smiled up at them, and his soul was filled with an unspoken
thankfulness that he was not born too late.
Pages:
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84