head just as Mary Standish wore her own.

These details pressed themselves upon him in a vague and unreal sort of
way. No one, not even Mary Standish, could understand how his mind and
nerves were fighting to recover themselves. His senses were swimming
back one by one to a vital point from which they had been swept by an
unexpected sea, gripping rather incoherently at unimportant realities as
they assembled themselves. In the edge of the tundra beyond the
cottonwoods he noticed three saddle-deer grazing at the ends of ropes
which were fastened to cotton-tufted nigger-heads. He drew off his pack
as Mary Standish went to help Keok pick up the fallen sticks. Nawadlook
was pulling a coffee-pot from the tiny fire. Stampede began to fill a
pipe. He realized that because they had expected him, if not today then
tomorrow or the next day or a day soon after that, no one had
experienced shock but himself, and with a mighty effort he reached back
and dragged the old Alan Holt into existence again. It was like bringing
an intelligence out of darkness into light.

It was difficult for him--afterward--to remember just what happened
during the next half-hour. The amazing thing was that Mary Standish sat
opposite him, with the cloth on which Nawadlook had spread the supper
things between them, and that she was the same clear-eyed, beautiful
Mary Standish who had sat across the table from him in the dining-salon
of the _Nome_.

Not until later, when he stood alone with Stampede Smith in the edge of
the cottonwoods, and the three girls were riding deer back over the
tundra in the direction of the Range, did the sea of questions which had
been gathering begin to sweep upon him. It had been Keok's suggestion
that she and Mary and Nawadlook ride on ahead, and he had noticed how
quickly Mary Standish had caught at the idea. 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. "I'm ready. Give me hell!"

CHAPTER XIV

It was thus, with a note of something inevitable in his voice, that
Stampede brought Alan back solidly to earth. There was a practical and
awakening inspiration in the manner of th