It was Alaska rising up
slowly but inexorably out of its eternity of sleep, mountain-sealed
forces of a great land that was once the cradle of the earth coming into
possession of life and power again; and his own feeble efforts in that
long and fighting process of planting the seeds which meant its ultimate
ascendancy possessed in themselves their own reward.
Long after Tautuk and Amuk Toolik had gone, his heart was filled with
the song of success.
He was surprised at the swiftness with which time had gone, when he
looked at his watch. It was almost dinner hour when he had finished with
his papers and books and went outside. He heard Wegaruk's voice coming
from the dark mouth of the underground icebox dug into the frozen
subsoil of the tundra, and pausing at the glimmer of his old
housekeeper's candle, he turned aside, descended the few steps, and
entered quietly into the big, square chamber eight feet under the
surface, where the earth had remained steadfastly frozen for some
hundreds of thousands of years. Wegaruk had a habit of talking when
alone, but Alan thought it odd that she should be explaining to herself
that the tundra-soil, in spite of its almost tropical summer richness
and luxuriance, never thawed deeper than three or four feet, below which
point remained the icy cold placed there so long ago that "even the
spirits did not know.
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