d shook the wet from his
body as he drank the sweetness into his lungs. Shoreward Alan saw the
mountains taking form, and one after another they rose up like living
things, their crests catching the fire of the sun. Dark inundations of
forest took up the shimmering gleam, green slopes rolled out from behind
veils of smoking vapor, and suddenly--in a final triumph of the sun--the
Alaskan coast lay before him in all its glory.

The Swede made a great gesture of exultation with his free arm, grinning
at his companion, pride and the joy of living in his bearded face. But
in Alan's there was no change. Dully he sensed the wonder of day and of
sunlight breaking over the mighty ranges to the sea, but something was
missing. The soul of it was gone, and the old thrill was dead. He felt
the tragedy of it, and his lips tightened even as he met the other's
smile, for he no longer made an effort to blind himself to the truth.

Olaf began to guess deeply at that truth, now that he could see Alan's
face in the pitiless light of the day, and after a little the thing lay
naked in his mind. The quest was not a matter of duty, nor was it
inspired by the captain of the _Nome_, as Alan had given him reason to
believe. There was more than grimness in the other's face, and a strange
sort of sickness lay in his eyes. A little later he observed the
straining eagerness with which those eyes scanned the softly undulating
surface of the sea.

At last he said, "If Captain Rifle was right, the girl went overboard
_out there_," and he pointed.

Alan stood up.

"But she wouldn't be there now," Olaf added.

In his heart he believed she was, straight down--at the bottom. He
turned his boat shoreward. Creeping out from the shadow of the mountains
was the white sand of the beach three or four miles away. A quarter of
an hour later a spiral of smoke detached itself from the rocks and
timber that came down close to the sea.

"That's McCormick's," he said.

Alan made no answer. Through Olaf's binoculars he picked out the
Scotchman's cabin. It was Sandy McCormick, Olaf had assured him, who
knew every eddy and drift in fifty miles of coast, and with his eyes
shut could find Mary Standish if she came ashore. And it was Sandy who
came down to greet them when Ericksen dropped his anchor in
shallow water.

They leaped out, thigh-deep, and waded to the beach, and in the door of
the cabin beyond Alan saw a woman looking down at them wonderingly.
Sandy hi