quiet, and he liked her because of that. He could not, of course, escape
the beauty of her eyes or the shimmering luster of the long lashes that
darkened them. But these were details which did not thrill him, but
merely pleased him. And her hair pleased him possibly even more than her
gray eyes, though he was not sufficiently concerned to discuss the
matter with himself. But if he had pointed out any one thing, it would
have been her hair--not so much the color of it as the care she
evidently gave it, and the manner in which she dressed it. He noted that
it was dark, with varying flashes of luster in it under the dinner
lights. But what he approved of most of all were the smooth, silky coils
in which she fastened it to her pretty head. It was an intense relief
after looking on so many frowsy heads, bobbed and marcelled, during his
six months' visit in the States. So he liked her, generally speaking,
because there was not a thing about her that he might dislike.

He did not, of course, wonder what the girl might be thinking of
him--with his quiet, stern face, his cold indifference, his rather
Indian-like litheness, and the single patch of gray that streaked his
thick, blond hair. His interest had not reached anywhere near
that point.

Tonight it was probable that no woman in the world could have interested
him, except as the always casual observer of humanity. Another and
greater thing gripped him and had thrilled him since he first felt the
throbbing pulse of the engines of the new steamship _Nome_ under his
feet at Seattle. He was going _home_. And home meant Alaska. It meant
the mountains, the vast tundras, the immeasurable spaces into which
civilization had not yet come with its clang and clamor. It meant
friends, the stars he knew, his herds, everything he loved. Such was his
reaction after six months of exile, six months of loneliness and