These mothers and wives Alan met during his week in Nome.  He would have given his life if a few million people in the States could have known these women.  Something would have happened then, and the sisterhood of half a continent—­possessing the power of the ballot—­would have opened their arms to them.  Men like John Graham would have gone out of existence; Alaska would have received her birthright.  For these women were of the kind who greeted the sun each day, and the gloom of winter, with something greater than hope in their hearts.  They, too, were builders.  Fear of God and love of land lay deep in their souls, and side by side with their men-folk they went on in this epic struggle for the building of a nation at the top of the world.

Many times during this week Alan felt it in his heart to speak of Mary Standish.  But in the end, not even to Carl Lomen did word of her escape his lips.  The passing of each day had made her more intimately a part of him, and a secret part.  He could not tell people about her.  He even made evasions when questioned about his business and experiences at Cordova and up the coast.  Curiously, she seemed nearer to him when he was away from other men and women.  He remembered it had been that way with his father, who was always happiest when in the deep mountains or the unending tundras.  And so Alan thrilled with an inner gladness when his business was finished and the day came for him to leave Nome.

Carl Lomen went with him as far as the big herd on Choris Peninsula.  For one hundred miles, up to Shelton, they rode over a narrow-gauge, four-foot railway on a hand-car drawn by dogs.  And it seemed to Alan, at times, as though Mary Standish were with him, riding in this strange way through a great wilderness.  He could see her.  That was the strange thing which began to possess him.  There were moments when her eyes were shining softly upon him, her lips smiling, her presence so real he might have spoken to her if Lomen had not been at his side.  He did not fight against these visionings.  It pleased him to think of her going with him into the heart of Alaska, riding the picturesque “pup-mobile,” losing herself in the mountains and in his tundras, with all the wonder and glory of a new world breaking upon her a little at a time, like the unfolding of a great mystery.  For there was both wonder and glory in these countless miles running ahead and drifting behind, and the miracle of northward-sweeping life.  The days were long.  Night, as Mary Standish had always known night, was gone.  On the twentieth of June there were twenty hours of day, with a dim and beautiful twilight between the hours of eleven and one.  Sleep was no longer a matter of the rising and setting of the sun, but was regulated by the hands of the watch.  A world frozen to the core for seven months was bursting open like a great flower.