Not until Juneau hung before him in all its picturesque beauty, literally terraced against the green sweep of Mount Juneau, did he go down to the lower deck.  The few passengers ready to leave the ship gathered near the gangway with their luggage.  Alan was about to pass them when he suddenly stopped.  A short distance from him, where he could see every person who disembarked, stood Rossland.  There was something grimly unpleasant in his attitude as he fumbled his watch-fob and eyed the stair from above.  His watchfulness sent an unexpected thrill through Alan.  Like a shot his mind jumped to a conclusion.  He stepped to Rossland’s side and touched his arm.

“Watching for Miss Standish?” he asked.

“I am.”  There was no evasion in Rossland’s words.  They possessed the hard and definite quality of one who had an incontestable authority behind him.

“And if she goes ashore?”

“I am going too.  Is it any affair of yours, Mr. Holt?  Has she asked you to discuss the matter with me?  If so—­”

“No, Miss Standish hasn’t done that.”

“Then please attend to your own business.  If you haven’t enough to take up your time, I’ll lend you some books.  I have several in my cabin.”

Without waiting for an answer Rossland coolly moved away.  Alan did not follow.  There was nothing for him to resent, nothing for him to imprecate but his own folly.  Rossland’s words were not an insult.  They were truth.  He had deliberately intruded in an affair which was undoubtedly of a highly private nature.  Possibly it was a domestic tangle.  He shuddered.  A sense of humiliation swept over him, and he was glad that Rossland did not even look back at him.  He tried to whistle as he climbed back to the main-deck; Rossland, even though he detested the man, had set him right.  And he would lend him books, if he wanted to be amused!  Egad, but the fellow had turned the trick nicely.  And it was something to be remembered.  He stiffened his shoulders and found old Donald Hardwick and Stampede Smith.  He did not leave them until the Nome had landed her passengers and freight and was churning her way out of Gastineau Channel toward Skagway.  Then he went to the smoking-room and remained there until luncheon hour.

Today Mary Standish was ahead of him at the table.  She was seated with her back toward him as he entered, so she did not see him as he came up behind her, so near that his coat brushed her chair.  He looked across at her and smiled as he seated himself.  She returned the smile, but it seemed to him an apologetic little effort.  She did not look well, and her presence at the table struck him as being a brave front to hide something from someone.  Casually he looked over his left shoulder.  Rossland was there, in his seat at the opposite side of the room.  Indirect as his glance had been, Alan saw the girl understood the significance of it.  She bowed her head a little, and her long lashes shaded her eyes for a