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.
