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Updated: July 22, 2025
Once, early in the evening, Alan went to his cabin to get maps and photographs. Stampede's eyes glistened as his mind seized upon the possibilities of the new adventure. It was a vast land. An unknown country. And Alan was its first pioneer.
And then, in that last second, straight into the girl's staring eyes blazed Stampede's gun, and the four inches of leering face behind her was suddenly blotted out.
She had smiled at him as she left, and a little farther out had waved her hand at him, as Keok and Nawadlook both had done, but not another word had passed between them alone. And as they rode off in the warm glow of sunset Alan stood watching them, and would have stared without speech until they were out of sight, if Stampede's fingers had not gripped his arm. "Now, go to it, Alan," he said.
The humorous twinkle had gone out of Stampede's eyes. He was staring at Alan. "Will I come? Alan, will a cub nurse its mother? Try me. Ask me. Say it all over ag'in." The two men gripped hands. Smiling, Alan nodded to the east. The last of the fog was clearing swiftly.
"Of course Keok and Nawadlook helped her." "Not very much. She did it. Made the curtains. Put them pictures and flags there. Picked the flowers. Been nice an' thoughtful, hasn't she?" "And somewhat unusual," added Alan. "And she is pretty." "Most decidedly so." There was a puzzling look in Stampede's eyes. He twisted nervously in his chair and waited for words. Alan sat down opposite him.
A low whistle escaped Stampede's lips. He opened his mouth to speak and closed it again. Alan observed him as he slipped the pack over his shoulders.
The physical sign of strain in Stampede's face, and the stolid effort he was making to say something which it was difficult for him to put into words, did not excite Alan as he waited for his companion's promised disclosure. Instead of suspense he felt rather a sense of anticipation and relief.
Somehow Stampede's voice and information lacked appeal. The decks were crowded with passengers as the ship picked her way into Juneau, and Alan wandered among them with a gathering sense of disillusionment pressing upon him. He knew that he was looking with more than casual interest for Mary Standish, and he was glad when Stampede bumped into an old acquaintance and permitted him to be alone.
He had humorous, blue eyes, buried like an Airedale's under brows which bristled even more fiercely than his whiskers. "I'm thinkin'," said he, "what a fool thing is money. Good mornin', Alan!" He nodded and chuckled, and continued to chuckle in the face of the lifting fog, and Alan saw the old humor which had always been Stampede's last asset when in trouble.
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