The Alaskan

The Alaskan

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Alaskan, by James Oliver Curwood, Illustrated by
Walt Louderback
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project
Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: The Alaskan
Author: James Oliver Curwood
Release Date: April 1, 2004 [eBook #11867]
Language: English
Character set encoding: iso-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ALASKAN***
E-text prepared by Charles Aldarondo, Charlie Kirschner, and the Project Gutenberg
Online Distributed Proofreading Team

Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the
original illustrations. See 11867-h.htm or 11867-h.zip:
(http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/1/1/8/6/11867/11867-h/11867-h.htm) or
(http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/1/1/8/6/11867/11867-h.zip)

THE ALASKAN
A Novel of the North
By JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD
With Illustrations by Walt Louderback

To the strong-hearted men and women of Alaska, the new empire rising in the North, it is
for me an honor and a privilege to dedicate this work.
JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD
Owosso, Michigan August 1, 1923

THE ILLUSTRATIONS
It was as if the man was deliberately insulting her (Frontispiece).
The long, black launch nosed its way out to sea.
The man wore a gun ... within reach of his hand.
Mary sobbed as the man she loved faced winged death.

CHAPTER I
Captain Rifle, gray and old in the Alaskan Steamship service, had not lost the spirit of his
youth along with his years. Romance was not dead in him, and the fire which is built up
of clean adventure and the association of strong men and a mighty country had not died
out of his veins. He could still see the picturesque, feel the thrill of the unusual, and--at
times--warm memories crowded upon him so closely that yesterday seemed today, and
Alaska was young again, thrilling the world with her wild call to those who had courage
to come and fight for her treasures, and live--or die.
Tonight, with the softly musical throb of his ship under his feet, and the yellow moon
climbing up from behind the ramparts of the Alaskan mountains, something of loneliness
seized upon him, and he said simply:
"That is Alaska."
The girl standing beside him at the rail did not turn, nor for a moment did she answer. He
could see her profile clear-cut as a cameo in the almost vivid light, and in that light her
eyes were wide and filled with a dusky fire, and her lips were parted a little, and her slim
body was tense as she looked at the wonder of the moon silhouetting the cragged castles
of the peaks, up where the soft, gray clouds lay like shimmering draperies.
Then she turned her face a little and nodded. "Yes, Alaska," she said, and the old captain
fancied there was the slightest ripple of a tremor in her voice. "Your Alaska, Captain
Rifle."
Out of the clearness of the night came to them a distant sound like the low moan of
thunder. Twice before, Mary Standish had heard it, and now she asked: "What was that?

Surely it can not be a storm, with the moon like that, and the stars so clear above!"
"It is ice breaking from the glaciers and falling into the sea. We are in the Wrangel
Narrows, and very near the shore, Miss Standish. If it were day you could hear the birds
singing. This is what we call the Inside Passage. I have always called it the
water-wonderland of the world, and yet, if you will observe, I must be mistaken--for we
are almost alone on this side of the ship. Is it not proof? If I were right, the men and
women in there--dancing, playing cards, chattering--would be crowding this rail. Can you
imagine humans like that? But they can't see what I see, for I am a ridiculous old fool
who remembers things. Ah, do you catch that in the air, Miss Standish--the perfume of
flowers, of forests, of green things ashore? It is faint, but I catch it."
"And so do I."
She breathed in deeply of the sweet air, and turned then, so that she stood with her back
to the rail, facing the flaming lights of the ship.
The mellow cadence of the music came to her, soft-stringed and sleepy; she could hear
the shuffle of dancing feet. Laughter rippled with the rhythmic thrum of the ship, voices
rose and fell beyond the lighted windows, and as the old captain looked at her, there was
something in her face which he could not understand.
She had come aboard strangely at Seattle, alone and almost at the last minute--defying
the necessity of making reservation where half a thousand others had been turned