CHAPTER I

Captain Rifle, gray and old in the Alaskan Steamship service, had not lost the spirit of his youth along with his years.  Romance was not dead in him, and the fire which is built up of clean adventure and the association of strong men and a mighty country had not died out of his veins.  He could still see the picturesque, feel the thrill of the unusual, and—­at times—­warm memories crowded upon him so closely that yesterday seemed today, and Alaska was young again, thrilling the world with her wild call to those who had courage to come and fight for her treasures, and live—­or die.

Tonight, with the softly musical throb of his ship under his feet, and the yellow moon climbing up from behind the ramparts of the Alaskan mountains, something of loneliness seized upon him, and he said simply: 

“That is Alaska.”

The girl standing beside him at the rail did not turn, nor for a moment did she answer.  He could see her profile clear-cut as a cameo in the almost vivid light, and in that light her eyes were wide and filled with a dusky fire, and her lips were parted a little, and her slim body was tense as she looked at the wonder of the moon silhouetting the cragged castles of the peaks, up where the soft, gray clouds lay like shimmering draperies.

Then she turned her face a little and nodded.  “Yes, Alaska,” she said, and the old captain fancied there was the slightest ripple of a tremor in her voice.  “Your Alaska, Captain Rifle.”

Out of the clearness of the night came to them a distant sound like the low moan of thunder.  Twice before, Mary Standish had heard it, and now she asked:  “What was that?  Surely it can not be a storm, with the moon like that, and the stars so clear above!”

“It is ice breaking from the glaciers and falling into the sea.  We are in the Wrangel Narrows, and very near the shore, Miss Standish.  If it were day you could hear the birds singing.  This is what we call the Inside Passage.  I have always called it the water-wonderland of the world, and yet, if you will observe, I must be mistaken—­for we are almost alone on this side of the ship.  Is it not proof?  If I were right, the men and women in there—­dancing, playing cards, chattering—­would be crowding this rail.  Can you imagine humans like that?  But they can’t see what I see, for I am a ridiculous old fool who remembers things.  Ah, do you catch that in the air, Miss Standish—­the perfume of flowers, of forests, of green things ashore?  It is faint, but I catch it.”

“And so do I.”

She breathed in deeply of the sweet air, and turned then, so that she stood with her back to the rail, facing the flaming lights of the ship.

The mellow cadence of the music came to her, soft-stringed and sleepy; she could hear the shuffle of dancing feet.  Laughter rippled with the rhythmic thrum of the ship, voices rose and fell beyond the lighted windows, and as the old captain looked at her, there was something in her face which he could not understand.