to
the open door of the cabin. It was Mary Standish--her courage, the-glory
of faith and love shining in her eyes, her measurement of him as a man.
She had not been afraid to say what was in her heart, because she knew
what he would do.

Mid-afternoon found him waiting for Tautuk and Amuk Toolik at the edge
of a slough where willows grew deep and green and the crested billows of
sedge-cotton stood knee-high. The faces of the herdsmen were sweating.
Thereafter Alan walked with them, until in that hour when the sun had
sunk to its lowest plane they came to the first of the Endicott
foothills. Here they rested until the coolness of deeper evening, when a
golden twilight filled the land, and then resumed the journey toward the
mountains.

Midsummer heat and the winged pests of the lower lands had driven the
herds steadily into the cooler altitudes of the higher plateaux and
valleys. Here they had split into telescoping columns which drifted in
slowly moving streams wherever the doors of the hills and mountains
opened into new grazing fields, until Alan's ten thousand reindeer were
in three divisions, two of the greatest traveling westward, and one, of
a thousand head, working north and east. The first and second days Alan
remained with the nearest and southward herd. The third day he went on
with Tautuk and two pack-deer through a break in the mountains and
joined the herdsmen of the second and higher multitude of feeding
animals. There began to possess him a curious disinclination to hurry,
and this aversion grew in a direct ratio with the thought which was
becoming stronger in him with each mile and hour of his progress. A
multitude of emotions were buried under the conviction that Mary
Standish must leave the range when he returned. He had a grim sense of
honor, and a particularly devout one when it had to do with women, and
though he conceded nothing of right and justice in the relationship
which existed between the woman he loved and John Graham, he knew that
she must go. To remain at the range was the one impossible thing for her
to do. He would take her to Tanana. He would go with her to the States.
The matter would be settled in a reasonable and intelligent way, and
when he came back, he would bring her with him.

But beneath this undercurrent of decision fought the thing which his
will held down, and yet never quite throttled completely--that something
which urged him with an unconquerable persistence to hold wi