And unconsciously, as he pledged his
services in acceptance of the offer, he glanced in the direction of the
little woman standing in the doorway of the cabin.
Alan met her. She was a quiet, sweet-looking girl-woman. She smiled
gravely at Olaf, gave her hand to Alan, and her blue eyes dilated when
she heard what had happened aboard the _Nome_. Alan left the three
together and returned to the beach, while between the loading and the
lighting of his pipe the Swede told what he had guessed--that this girl
whose body would never be washed ashore was the beginning and the end of
the world to Alan Holt.
For many miles they searched the beach that day, while Sandy McCormick
skirmished among the islands south and eastward in a light shore-launch.
He was, in a way, a Paul Revere spreading intelligence, and with Scotch
canniness made a good bargain for himself. In a dozen cabins he left
details of the drowning and offered a reward of five hundred dollars for
the finding of the body, so that twenty men and boys and half as many
women were seeking before nightfall.
"And remember," Sandy told each of them, "the chances are she'll wash
ashore sometime between tomorrow and three days later, if she comes
ashore at all."
In the dusk of that first day Alan found himself ten miles up the coast.
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