At the edge of the world a mass of clouds impersonated the Alps—towering to an impressive height above the purple hills. Their whiteness was tinted with pink and one of them burned with a ghostly fire. Above these, in flat strips, lay ribbons of old-rose and greenish-yellow, while still higher the sky was a golden haze. For a moment they stared in silence at the gorgeous picture. Then he declared,
“That looks like Alaska.”
“It’s hard for me to realize that you haven’t really been in Alaska,” she said. “You make it all so vivid.”
“I’m willing to let my proxy attend to the actuality,” he answered, “but I thank him for transferring his dreams to me.”
“I’m afraid Joe never dreamed very beautifully. The dreams are all your own.”
“He must have dreamed some,” he mused, “or he wouldn’t have undertaken the journey.”
“He dreamed of gold, perhaps.”
“Well, a dream is always a dream. There’s some good in a man who will go adventuring even for gold.”
“But the object of the quest makes some difference,” she insisted.
“Undoubtedly. Though not as much as you would think. It’s the way a man handles the obstacles to his quest that counts.”