For here were his _people_. Here were the men and
women who were guarding the northern door of the world, an epic place,
filled with strong hearts, courage, and a love of country as
inextinguishable as one's love of life. From this drab little place,
shut out from all the world for half the year, young men and women went
down to southern universities, to big cities, to the glamor and lure of
"outside." But they always came back. Nome called them. Its loneliness
in winter. Its gray gloom in springtime. Its glory in summer and autumn.
It was the breeding-place of a new race of men, and they loved it as
Alan loved it. To him the black wireless tower meant more than the
Statue of Liberty, the three weather-beaten church spires more than the
architectural colossi of New York and Washington. Beside one of the
churches he had played as a boy. He had seen the steeples painted. He
had helped make the crooked streets. And his mother had laughed and
lived and died here, and his father's footprints had been in the white
sands of the beach when tents dotted the shore like gulls.
When he stepped ashore, people stared at him and then greeted him. He
was unexpected. And the surprise of his arrival added strength to the
grip which men's hands gave him. He had not heard voices like theirs
down in the States, with a gladness in them that was almost excitement.
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