d its responsibility. I ask your pardon again for
interrupting you. It was not premeditated. It just happened."

She did not wait for either of them to speak, but flashed the two a
swift smile and passed down the promenade.

The music had ceased and the cabins at last were emptying themselves of
life.

"A remarkable young woman," Alan remarked. "I imagine that the spirit of
Captain Miles Standish may be a little proud of this particular
olive-branch. A chip off the old block, you might say. One would almost
suppose he had married Priscilla and this young lady was a definite
though rather indirect result."

He had a curious way of laughing without any more visible manifestation
of humor than spoken words. It was a quality in his voice which one
could not miss, and at times, when ironically amused, it carried a
sting which he did not altogether intend.

In another moment Mary Standish was forgotten, and he was asking the
captain a question which was in his mind.

"The itinerary of this ship is rather confused, is it not?"

"Yes--rather," acknowledged Captain Rifle. "Hereafter she will ply
directly between Seattle and Nome. But this time we're doing the Inside
Passage to Juneau and Skagway and will make the Aleutian Passage via
Cordova and Seward. A whim of the owners, which they haven't seen fit to
explain to me. Possibly the Canadian junket aboard may have something to
do with it. We're landing them at Skagway, where they make the Yukon by
way of White Horse Pass. A pleasure trip for flabby people nowadays,
Holt. I can remember--"

"So can I," nodded Alan Holt, looking at the mountains beyond which lay
the dead-strewn trails of the gold stampede of a generation before. "I
remember. And old Donald is dreaming of that hell of death back there.
He was all choked up tonight. I wish he might forget."

"Men don't forget such women as Jane Hope," said the captain softly.

"You knew her?"

"Yes. She came up with her father on my ship. That was twenty-five years
ago last autumn, Alan. A long time, isn't it? And when I look at Mary
Standish and hear her voice--" He hesitated, as if betraying a secret,
and then he added: "--I can't help thinking of the girl Donald Hardwick
fought for and won in that death-hole at White Horse. It's too bad she
had to die."

"She isn't dead," said Alan. The hardness was gone from his voice. "She
isn't dead," he repeated. "That's the pity of it. She is as much a
living thing to him toda