is knowledge under
sudden and unexpected stress of emotion. He tried to laugh the absurd
stuff out of his thoughts and to the end that he might add a new color
to his visionings he exchanged his half-burned cigar for a black-bowled
pipe, which he filled and lighted. Then he began walking back and forth
in his cabin, like a big animal in a small cage, until at last he stood
with his head half out of the open port, looking at the clear stars and
setting the perfume of his tobacco adrift with the soft sea wind.

He felt himself growing comforted. Reason seated itself within him
again, with sentiment shuttled under his feet. If he had been a little
harsh with Miss Standish tonight, he would make up for it by apologizing
tomorrow. She would probably have recovered her balance by that time,
and they would laugh over her excitement and their little adventure.
That is, he would. "I'm not at all curious in the matter," some
persistent voice kept telling him, "and I haven't any interest in
knowing what irrational whim drove her to my cabin." But he smoked
viciously and smiled grimly as the voice kept at him. He would have
liked to obliterate Rossland from his mind. But Rossland persisted in
bobbing up, and with him Mary Standish's words, "If I should make an
explanation, you would hate me," or something to that effect. He
couldn't remember exactly. And he didn't want to remember exactly, for
it was none of his business.

In this humor, with half of his thoughts on one side of the fence and
half on the other, he put out his light and went to bed. And he began
thinking of the Range. That was pleasanter. For the tenth time he
figured out how long it would be before the glacial-twisted ramparts of
the Endicott Mountains rose up in first welcome to his home-coming. Carl
Lomen, following on the next ship, would join him at Unalaska. They
would go on to Nome together. After that he would spend a week or so in
the Peninsula, then go up the Kobuk, across the big portage to the
Koyukuk and the far headwaters of the north, and still farther--beyond
the last trails of civilized men--to his herds and his people. And
Stampede Smith would be with him. After a long winter of homesickness it
was all a comforting inducement to sleep and pleasant dreams. But
somewhere there was a wrong note in his anticipations tonight. Stampede
Smith slipped away from him, and Rossland took his place. And Keok,
laughing, changed into Mary Standish with tantalizin