The Alaskan | Page 3

poor product
out of the melting-pot, Captain Rifle. I am going north--to learn."
"Only that, Miss Standish?"
His question, quietly spoken and without emphasis, demanded an answer. His kindly face,
seamed by the suns and winds of many years at sea, was filled with honest anxiety as she
turned to look straight into his eyes.
"I must press the question," he said. "As the captain of this ship, and as a father, it is my
duty. Is there not something you would like to tell me--in confidence, if you will have it
so?"
For an instant she hesitated, then slowly she shook her head. "There is nothing, Captain
Rifle."
"And yet--you came aboard very strangely," he urged. "You will recall that it was most
unusual--without reservation, without baggage--"
"You forget the hand-bag," she reminded him.
"Yes, but one does not start for northern Alaska with only a hand-bag scarcely large
enough to contain a change of linen, Miss Standish."
"But I did, Captain Rifle."
"True. And I saw you fighting past the guards like a little wildcat. It was without
precedent."
"I am sorry. But they were stupid and difficult to pass."
"Only by chance did I happen to see it all, my child. Otherwise the ship's regulations
would have compelled me to send you ashore. You were frightened. You can not deny
that. You were running away from something!"
He was amazed at the childish simplicity with which she answered him.

"Yes, I was running away--from something."
Her eyes were beautifully clear and unafraid, and yet again he sensed the thrill of the
fight she was making.
"And you will not tell me why--or from what you were escaping?"
"I can not--tonight. I may do so before we reach Nome. But--it is possible--"
"What?"
"That I shall never reach Nome."
Suddenly she caught one of his hands in both her own. Her fingers clung to him, and with
a little note of fierceness in her voice she hugged the hand to her breast. "I know just how
good you have been to me," she cried. "I should like to tell you why I came aboard--like
that. But I can not. Look! Look at those wonderful mountains!" With one free hand she
pointed.
"Behind them and beyond them lie the romance and adventure and mystery of centuries,
and for nearly thirty years you have been very near those things, Captain Rifle. No man
will ever see again what you have seen or feel what you have felt, or forget what you
have had to forget. I know it. And after all that, can't you--won't you--forget the strange
manner in which I came aboard this ship? It is such a simple, little thing to put out of
your mind, so trivial, so unimportant when you look back--and think. Please Captain
Rifle--please!"
So quickly that he scarcely sensed the happening of it she pressed his hand to her lips.
Their warm thrill came and went in an instant, leaving him speechless, his resolution
gone.
"I love you because you have been so good to me," she whispered, and as suddenly as she
had kissed his hand, she was gone, leaving him alone at the rail.

CHAPTER II
Alan Holt saw the slim figure of the girl silhouetted against the vivid light of the open
doorway of the upper-deck salon. He was not watching her, nor did he look closely at the
exceedingly attractive picture which she made as she paused there for an instant after
leaving Captain Rifle. To him she was only one of the five hundred human atoms that
went to make up the tremendously interesting life of one of the first ships of the season
going north. Fate, through the suave agency of the purser, had brought him into a bit
closer proximity to her than the others; that was all. For two days her seat in the
dining-salon had been at the same table, not quite opposite him. As she had missed both
breakfast hours, and he had skipped two luncheons, the requirements of neighborliness
and of courtesy had not imposed more than a dozen words of speech upon them. This was

very satisfactory to Alan. He was not talkative or communicative of his own free will.
There was a certain cynicism back of his love of silence. He was a good listener and a
first-rate analyst. Some people, he knew, were born to talk; and others, to trim the
balance, were burdened with the necessity of holding their tongues. For him silence was
not a burden.
In his cool and causal way he admired Mary Standish. She was very quiet, and he liked
her because of that. He could not, of course, escape the beauty of her eyes or the
shimmering luster of the long lashes that darkened