Even now he did not think of her as
Mary Graham. But she was Graham's wife. And if he had gone to her in
that moment of glorious confession when she had stood at Nawadlook's
door, if he had violated her faith when, because of faith, she had laid
the world at his feet, he would have fallen to the level of John Graham
himself. Thought of the narrowness of his escape and of the first mad
desire to call her back from Nawadlook's room, to hold her in his arms
again as he had held her in the cottonwoods, brought a hot fire into his
face. Something greater than his own fighting instinct had turned him to
the open door of the cabin. It was Mary Standish--her courage, the-glory
of faith and love shining in her eyes, her measurement of him as a man.
She had not been afraid to say what was in her heart, because she knew
what he would do.
Mid-afternoon found him waiting for Tautuk and Amuk Toolik at the edge
of a slough where willows grew deep and green and the crested billows of
sedge-cotton stood knee-high. The faces of the herdsmen were sweating.
Thereafter Alan walked with them, until in that hour when the sun had
sunk to its lowest plane they came to the first of the Endicott
foothills. Here they rested until the coolness of deeper evening, when a
golden twilight filled the land, and then resumed the journey toward the
mountains.
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