was already lighted, and pride in the look he gave his young wife. A
moment later Ellen McCormick deftly covered with her apron something
which lay on a little table near the door through which Alan had to pass
to enter his sleeping-room. Olaf's eyes twinkled. But Alan did not see.
Only he knew there should be children here, where there was surely love.
It did not occur to him as being strange that he, Alan Holt, should
think of such a matter at all.

The next morning the search was resumed. Sandy drew a crude map of
certain hidden places up the east coast where drifts and cross-currents
tossed the flotsam of the sea, and Alan set out for these shores with
Olaf at the wheel of the _Norden_. It was sunset when they returned, and
in the calm of a wonderful evening, with the comforting peace of the
mountains smiling down at them, Olaf believed the time had come to speak
what was in his mind. He spoke first of the weird tricks of the Alaskan
waters, and of strange forces deep down under the surface which he had
never had explained to him, and of how he had lost a cask once upon a
time, and a week later had run upon it well upon its way to Japan. He
emphasized the hide-and-seek playfulness of the undertows and the
treachery of them.

Then he came bluntly to the point of the matter. It would be better if
Mary Standish never did come ashore. It would be days--probably
weeks--if it ever happened at all, and there would be nothing about her
for Alan to recognize. Better a peaceful resting-place at the bottom of
the sea. That was what he called it--"a peaceful resting-place"--and in
his earnestness to soothe another's grief he blundered still more deeply
into the horror of it all, describing certain details of what flesh and
bone could and could not stand, until Alan felt like clubbing him beyond
the power of speech. He was glad when he saw the McCormick cabin.

Sandy was waiting for them when they waded ashore. Something unusual was
in his face, Alan thought, and for a moment his heart waited in
suspense. But the Scotchman shook his head negatively and went close to
Olaf Ericksen. Alan did not see the look that passed between them. He
went to the cabin, and Ellen McCormick put a hand on his arm when he
entered. It was an unusual thing for her to do. And there was a glow in
her eyes which had not been there last night, and a flush in her cheeks,
and a new, strange note in her voice when she spoke to him. It was
almost exultati