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Updated: July 2, 2025
"I am at your service," he replied with a rather cold inclination of his head. "But if you were my sister, Miss Standish, I would not allow anything like that to go unchallenged." He watched the stranger until he disappeared through a door out upon the deck. "One of John Graham's men," he said. "A fellow named Rossland, going up to get a final grip on the salmon fishing, I understand.
He had seemed to feel her heart beating with his own as he described his beloved land under the Endicott Mountains, with its vast tundras, his herds, and his people. There, he had told her, a new world was in the making, and the glow in her eyes and the thrilling something in her voice had urged him on until he forgot that Rossland was waiting at the ship's gangway to see when they returned.
What was her mysterious association with Rossland, an agent of Alaska's deadliest enemy, John Graham the one man upon whom he had sworn vengeance if opportunity ever came his way? Over him, clubbing other emotions with its insistence, rode a demand for explanations which it was impossible for him to make.
Now it was persistently annoying, inasmuch as he had no desire to be so constantly reminded of last night, and the twelve o'clock tryst of Mary Standish with Graham's agent, Rossland. He was the last at the table. Tucker, remaining until his final hope of seeing Mary Standish was gone, rose with two others.
"I'm afraid I don't understand," said Alan, hiding his face in the smoke of his cigar and speaking with an apparent indifference which had its effect upon Rossland. "Your presence inclines me to believe that luck has rather turned against me. Where can my advantage be?" A grim seriousness settled in Rossland's eyes, and his voice became cool and hard.
The captain's hand was on Alan's arm when he finished, and the flesh under his fingers was rigid and hard as steel. "We'll talk with Rossland after the boats return," he said. He drew Alan from the room and closed the door. Not until he had reentered his own cabin did Alan realize he still held the crushed shoe in his hand. He placed it on his bed and dressed. It took him only a few minutes.
A note of passion crept into her voice, but it was gone in an instant, leaving it cold and steady again. A second time she tried to smile. He could see courage, and a bit of defiance, shining in her eyes. "I know what you are thinking, Mr. Holt. You are asking yourself if I am mad, if I am a criminal, what my reason can be, and why I haven't gone to Rossland, or Captain Rifle, or some one else.
And her hand cold as a lump of clay when she put it on mine. It was in her eyes, too. Besides, Rossland has taken possession of your cabin as though he owns it. I take it that means somebody behind him, a force, something big to reckon with. He asked me how many men we had. I told him, stretching it a little. He grinned. He couldn't keep back that grin.
What do you say?" Alan was stunned. Speech failed him as he realized the monstrous assurance with which Graham and Rossland were playing their game. And when he made no answer Rossland continued to drive home his arguments, believing that at last Alan was at the point of surrender. Up in the dark attic the voices had come like ghost-land whispers to old Sokwenna.
I saw him pick off a duck the other day at two hundred yards." They hurried on. After a little Alan said, with the fear which he could not name clutching at his heart, "Why did you say Graham might not be far away?" "In my bones," replied Stampede, his face hard as rock again. "In my bones!" "Is that all?" "Not quite. I think Rossland told her. She was so white.
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