Thursday, January sixteenth.
Well, after to-day there remains no doubt that Olson stays away purposely—unless he’s sick or dead. Rockwell’s theory that Seward has been totally swept away by a terrible fire, with every man, woman, and child of its inhabitants, I disproved to-night. We walked down the beach and there were the lights of the great city brighter it seemed than ever. Either there has been no mail boat at all since early in December or there has been no mail from Juneau whence Olson’s “check-que,” as he calls it, comes. Well it profits us nothing to speculate on this.
The day has been glorious, mild, fair, with snow everywhere even on the trees. The snow sticks to the mountain tops even to the steepest, barest peaks painting them all a spotless, dazzling white. It’s a marvelous sight. Rockwell and I journeyed around the point to-day and saw the sun again. To-night in the brilliant moonlight I snowshoed around the cove. There never was so beautiful a land as this! Now at midnight the moon is overhead. Our clearing seems as bright as day,—and the shadows are so dark! From the little window the lamplight shines out through the fringe of icicles along the eaves, and they glisten like diamonds. And in the still air the smoke ascends straight up into the blue night sky.
VICTORY