Even after he had turned many things over in his mind to bolster up this conclusion, he was still not at ease.  Against his will he recalled certain unpleasant things which had happened within his knowledge under sudden and unexpected stress of emotion.  He tried to laugh the absurd stuff out of his thoughts and to the end that he might add a new color to his visionings he exchanged his half-burned cigar for a black-bowled pipe, which he filled and lighted.  Then he began walking back and forth in his cabin, like a big animal in a small cage, until at last he stood with his head half out of the open port, looking at the clear stars and setting the perfume of his tobacco adrift with the soft sea wind.

He felt himself growing comforted.  Reason seated itself within him again, with sentiment shuttled under his feet.  If he had been a little harsh with Miss Standish tonight, he would make up for it by apologizing tomorrow.  She would probably have recovered her balance by that time, and they would laugh over her excitement and their little adventure.  That is, he would.  “I’m not at all curious in the matter,” some persistent voice kept telling him, “and I haven’t any interest in knowing what irrational whim drove her to my cabin.”  But he smoked viciously and smiled grimly as the voice kept at him.  He would have liked to obliterate Rossland from his mind.  But Rossland persisted in bobbing up, and with him Mary Standish’s words, “If I should make an explanation, you would hate me,” or something to that effect.  He couldn’t remember exactly.  And he didn’t want to remember exactly, for it was none of his business.

In this humor, with half of his thoughts on one side of the fence and half on the other, he put out his light and went to bed.  And he began thinking of the Range.  That was pleasanter.  For the tenth time he figured out how long it would be before the glacial-twisted ramparts of the Endicott Mountains rose up in first welcome to his home-coming.  Carl Lomen, following on the next ship, would join him at Unalaska.  They would go on to Nome together.  After that he would spend a week or so in the Peninsula, then go up the Kobuk, across the big portage to the Koyukuk and the far headwaters of the north, and still farther—­beyond the last trails of civilized men—­to his herds and his people.  And Stampede Smith would be with him.  After a long winter of homesickness it was all a comforting inducement to sleep and pleasant dreams.  But somewhere there was a wrong note in his anticipations tonight.  Stampede Smith slipped away from him, and Rossland took his place.  And Keok, laughing, changed into Mary Standish with tantalizing deviltry.  It was like Keok, Alan thought drowsily—­she was always tormenting someone.