And so Alan thrilled with an inner gladness when his
business was finished and the day came for him to leave Nome.
Carl Lomen went with him as far as the big herd on Choris Peninsula. For
one hundred miles, up to Shelton, they rode over a narrow-gauge,
four-foot railway on a hand-car drawn by dogs. And it seemed to Alan, at
times, as though Mary Standish were with him, riding in this strange way
through a great wilderness. He could _see_ her. That was the strange
thing which began to possess him. There were moments when her eyes were
shining softly upon him, her lips smiling, her presence so real he might
have spoken to her if Lomen had not been at his side. He did not fight
against these visionings. It pleased him to think of her going with him
into the heart of Alaska, riding the picturesque "pup-mobile," losing
herself in the mountains and in his tundras, with all the wonder and
glory of a new world breaking upon her a little at a time, like the
unfolding of a great mystery. For there was both wonder and glory in
these countless miles running ahead and drifting behind, and the miracle
of northward-sweeping life. The days were long. Night, as Mary Standish
had always known night, was gone. On the twentieth of June there were
twenty hours of day, with a dim and beautiful twilight between the hours
of eleven and one.
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