the glory and greatness of God all about them in the open spaces.  She now understood what he had meant when he said he was an Alaskan and not an American; she was that, too, an Alaskan first of all, and for Alaska she would go on fighting with him, hand in hand, until the very end.  His heart throbbed until it seemed it would break, and all the time she was whispering her hopes and secrets to him he stroked her silken hair, until it lay spread over his breast, and against his lips, and for the first time in years a hot flood of tears filled his eyes.

So happiness came to them; and only strange voices outside raised Mary’s head from where it lay, and took her quickly to the window where she stood a vision of sweet loveliness, radiant in the tumbled confusion and glory of her hair.  Then she turned with a little cry, and her eyes were shining like stars as she looked at Alan.

“It is Amuk Toolik,” she said.  “He has returned.”

“And—­is he alone?” Alan asked, and his heart stood still while he waited for her answer.

Demurely she came to his side, and smoothed his pillow, and stroked back his hair.  “I must go and do up my hair, Alan,” she said then.  “It would never do for them to find me like this.”

And suddenly, in a moment, their fingers entwined and tightened, for on the roof of Sokwenna’s cabin the little gray-cheeked thrush was singing again.