was tense as she looked at the wonder of the moon silhouetting the
cragged castles of the peaks, up where the soft, gray clouds lay like
shimmering draperies.

Then she turned her face a little and nodded. "Yes, Alaska," she said,
and the old captain fancied there was the slightest ripple of a tremor
in her voice. "Your Alaska, Captain Rifle."

Out of the clearness of the night came to them a distant sound like the
low moan of thunder. Twice before, Mary Standish had heard it, and now
she asked: "What was that? Surely it can not be a storm, with the moon
like that, and the stars so clear above!"

"It is ice breaking from the glaciers and falling into the sea. We are
in the Wrangel Narrows, and very near the shore, Miss Standish. If it
were day you could hear the birds singing. This is what we call the
Inside Passage. I have always called it the water-wonderland of the
world, and yet, if you will observe, I must be mistaken--for we are
almost alone on this side of the ship. Is it not proof? If I were right,
the men and women in there--dancing, playing cards, chattering--would be
crowding this rail. Can you imagine humans like that? But they can't see
what I see, for I am a ridiculous old fool who remembers things. Ah, do
you catch that in the air, Miss Standish--the perfume of flowers, of
forests, of green things ashore? It is faint, but I catch it."

"And so do I."

She breathed in deeply of the sweet air, and turned then, so that she
stood with her back to the rail, facing the flaming lights of the ship.