ew a trail through which his beloved land might come into its own,
and the desire to see it achieve a final triumph by feeding a half of
that America which had laughed at it and kicked it when it was down.

The tolling of the ship's bell roused him from the subconscious struggle
into which he had allowed himself to be drawn. Ordinarily he had no
sympathy with himself when he fell into one of these mental spasms, as
he called them. Without knowing it, he was a little proud of a certain
dispassionate tolerance which he possessed--a philosophical mastery of
his emotions which at times was almost cold-blooded, and which made some
people think he was a thing of stone instead of flesh and blood. His
thrills he kept to himself. And a mildly disturbing sensation passed
through him now, when he found that unconsciously his fingers had twined
themselves about the little handkerchief in his pocket. He drew it out
and made a sudden movement as if to toss it overboard. Then, with a
grunt expressive of the absurdity of the thing, he replaced it in his
pocket and began to walk slowly toward the bow of the ship.

He wondered, as he noted the lifting of the fog, what he would have been
had he possessed a sister like Mary Standish. Or any family at all, for
that matter--even an uncle or two who might have been interested in him.
He remembered his father vividly, his mother a little less so, because
his mother had died when he was six and his father when he was twenty.
It was his father who stood out above everything else, like the
mountains he loved. The father would remain with him always, inspiring
him, urging him, encouraging him to live like a gentleman, fight like a
man, and die at last unafraid. In that fashion the older Alan Holt had
lived and died. But his mother, her face and voice scarcely remembered
in the passing of many years, was more a hallowed memory to him than a
thing of flesh and blood. And there had been no sisters or brothers.
Often he had regretted this lack of brotherhood. But a sister.... He
grunted his disapprobation of the thought. A sister would have meant
enchainment to civilization. Cities, probably. Even the States. And
slavery to a life he detested. He appreciated the immensity of his
freedom. A Mary Standish, even though she were his sister, would be a
catastrophe. He could not conceive of her, or any other woman like her,
living with Keok and Nawadlook and the rest of his people in the heart
of the tundra