mself was young and ruddy-faced, more like a boy than a man.
They shook hands. Then Alan told of the tragedy aboard the _Nome_ and
what his mission was. He made a great effort to speak calmly, and
believed that he succeeded. Certainly there was no break of emotion in
his cold, even voice, and at the same time no possibility of evading its
deadly earnestness. McCormick, whose means of livelihood were
frequently more unsubstantial than real, listened to the offer of
pecuniary reward for his services with something like shock. Fifty
dollars a day for his time, and an additional five thousand dollars if
he found the girl's body.

To Alan the sums meant nothing. He was not measuring dollars, and if he
had said ten thousand or twenty thousand, the detail of price would not
have impressed him as important. He possessed as much money as that in
the Nome banks, and a little more, and had the thing been practicable he
would as willingly have offered his reindeer herds could they have
guaranteed him the possession of what he sought. In Olaf's face
McCormick caught a look which explained the situation a little. Alan
Holt was not mad. He was as any other man might be who had lost the most
precious thing in the world. And unconsciously, as he pledged his
services in acceptance of the offer, he glanced in the direction of the
little woman standing in the doorway of the cabin.

Alan met her. She was a quiet, sweet-looking girl-woman. She smiled
gravely at Olaf, gave her hand to Alan, and her blue eyes dilated when
she heard what had happened aboard the _Nome_. Alan left the three
together and returned to the beach, while between the loading and the
lighting of his pipe the Swede told what he had guessed--that this girl
whose body would never be washed ashore was the beginning and the end of
the world to Alan Holt.

For many miles they searched the beach that day, while Sandy McCormick
skirmished among the islands south and eastward in a light shore-launch.
He was, in a way, a Paul Revere spreading intelligence, and with Scotch
canniness made a good bargain for himself. In a dozen cabins he left
details of the drowning and offered a reward of five hundred dollars for
the finding of the body, so that twenty men and boys and half as many
women were seeking before nightfall.

"And remember," Sandy told each of them, "the chances are she'll wash
ashore sometime between tomorrow and three days later, if she comes
ashore at all."

In th