Truth seemed to mock at him, flaying him for that invulnerable poise in which he had taken such an egotistical pride.  For she had come to him in her hour of trouble, and there were five hundred others aboard the Nome.  She had believed in him, had given him her friendship and her confidence, and at the last had placed her life in his hands.  And when he had failed her, she had not gone to another.  She had kept her word, proving to him she was not a liar and a fraud, and he knew at last the courage of womanhood and the truth of her words, “You will understand—­tomorrow.”

He kept the fight within himself.  Olaf did not see it as the dawn lightened swiftly into the beginning of day.  There was no change in the tense lines of his face and the grim resolution in his eyes.  And Olaf did not press his folly upon him, but kept the Norden pointed seaward, adding still greater speed as the huge shadow of the headland loomed up in the direction of Hinchinbrook Island.  With increasing day the rain subsided; it fell in a drizzle for a time and then stopped.  Alan threw off his slicker and wiped the water from his eyes and hair.  White mists began to rise, and through them shot faint rose-gleams of light.  Olaf grunted approbation as he wrung water from his beard.  The sun was breaking through over the mountain tops, and straight above, as the mist dissolved, was radiant blue sky.

The miracle of change came swiftly in the next half-hour.  Storm had washed the air until it was like tonic; a salty perfume rose from the sea; and Olaf stood up and stretched himself and shook the wet from his body as he drank the sweetness into his lungs.  Shoreward Alan saw the mountains taking form, and one after another they rose up like living things, their crests catching the fire of the sun.  Dark inundations of forest took up the shimmering gleam, green slopes rolled out from behind veils of smoking vapor, and suddenly—­in a final triumph of the sun—­the Alaskan coast lay before him in all its glory.

The Swede made a great gesture of exultation with his free arm, grinning at his companion, pride and the joy of living in his bearded face.  But in Alan’s there was no change.  Dully he sensed the wonder of day and of sunlight breaking over the mighty ranges to the sea, but something was missing.  The soul of it was gone, and the old thrill was dead.  He felt the tragedy of it, and his lips tightened even as he met the other’s smile, for he no longer made an effort to blind himself to the truth.

Olaf began to guess deeply at that truth, now that he could see Alan’s face in the pitiless light of the day, and after a little the thing lay naked in his mind.  The quest was not a matter of duty, nor was it inspired by the captain of the Nome, as Alan had given him reason to believe.  There was more than grimness in the other’s face, and a strange sort of sickness lay in his eyes.  A little later he observed the straining eagerness with which those eyes scanned the softly undulating surface of the sea.