Olaf's eyes twinkled. But Alan did not see.
Only he knew there should be children here, where there was surely love.
It did not occur to him as being strange that he, Alan Holt, should
think of such a matter at all.
The next morning the search was resumed. Sandy drew a crude map of
certain hidden places up the east coast where drifts and cross-currents
tossed the flotsam of the sea, and Alan set out for these shores with
Olaf at the wheel of the _Norden_. It was sunset when they returned, and
in the calm of a wonderful evening, with the comforting peace of the
mountains smiling down at them, Olaf believed the time had come to speak
what was in his mind. He spoke first of the weird tricks of the Alaskan
waters, and of strange forces deep down under the surface which he had
never had explained to him, and of how he had lost a cask once upon a
time, and a week later had run upon it well upon its way to Japan. He
emphasized the hide-and-seek playfulness of the undertows and the
treachery of them.
Then he came bluntly to the point of the matter. It would be better if
Mary Standish never did come ashore. It would be days--probably
weeks--if it ever happened at all, and there would be nothing about her
for Alan to recognize. Better a peaceful resting-place at the bottom of
the sea.
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