“It beats the devil!” he exclaimed suddenly.

“It does,” agreed Alan.

Cold, hard reason began to shoulder itself inevitably against the happiness that possessed him, and questions which he had found no interest in asking when aboard ship leaped upon him with compelling force.  Why was it so tragically important to Mary Standish that the world should believe her dead?  What was it that had driven her to appeal to him and afterward to jump into the sea?  What was her mysterious association with Rossland, an agent of Alaska’s deadliest enemy, John Graham—­the one man upon whom he had sworn vengeance if opportunity ever came his way?  Over him, clubbing other emotions with its insistence, rode a demand for explanations which it was impossible for him to make.  Stampede saw the tense lines in his face and remained silent in the lengthening twilight, while Alan’s mind struggled to bring coherence and reason out of a tidal wave of mystery and doubt.  Why had she come to his cabin aboard the Nome?  Why had she played him with such conspicuous intent against Rossland, and why—­in the end—­had she preceded him to his home in the tundras?  It was this question which persisted, never for an instant swept aside by the others.  She had not come because of love for him.  In a brutal sort of way he had proved that, for when he had taken her in his arms, he had seen distress and fear and a flash of horror in her face.  Another and more mysterious force had driven her.

The joy in him was a living flame even as this realization pressed upon him.  He was like a man who had found life after a period of something that was worse than death, and with his happiness he felt himself twisted upon an upheaval of conflicting sensations and half convictions out of which, in spite of his effort to hold it back, suspicion began to creep like a shadow.  But it was not the sort of suspicion to cool the thrill in his blood or frighten him, for he was quite ready to concede that Mary Standish was a fugitive, and that her flight from Seattle had been in the face of a desperate necessity.  What had happened aboard ship was further proof, and her presence at his range a final one.  Forces had driven her which it had been impossible for her to combat, and in desperation she had come to him for refuge.  She had chosen him out of all the world to help her; she believed in him; she had faith that with him no harm could come, and his muscles tightened with sudden desire to fight for her.

In these moments he became conscious of the evening song of the tundras and the soft splendor of the miles reaching out ahead of them.  He strained his eyes to catch another glimpse of the mounted figures when they came up out of hollows to the clough-tops, but the lacy veils of evening were drawing closer, and he looked in vain.  Bird-song grew softer; sleepy cries rose from the grasses and pools; the fire of the sun itself died out, leaving its radiance in a