Stretching away in all directions was tier upon tier of snow-clad peaks, aglow with the soft radiance of the low-lying sun as it swept the horizon towards the North in its uninterrupted 155 circuit of the heavens. The southern end of the Alaskan range seemed like an opalescent serrated bow, changing to violet through all the darker hues of the spectrum by some strange freak of the atmosphere, only to leap into glorious amber as the fringe of a cloud passed across the origin of illumination.
Everything seemed so vast, so forbidding, it reduced her to a state of ignominy. If one desired a sense of Eternity, here it was. Time and space merged into one inscrutable entity—the Spirit of the North. She had felt that Spirit when crossing the passes that led to the Klondyke. Here it was limned in clearer form. The everlasting peaks; the aquamarine glaciers, roaring and plunging into the sea; the vast forests sprawling across the valleys and up the bases of the mountains to some two thousand feet, virgin as they were ten thousand years ago; the noisy fiords cumbered with the ice of crystal rivers, breaking the deathlike silence with ear-splitting concussions—all combined in one awe-inspiring picture of nature’s incomparable handiwork.
And here under her feet were fragrant flowers, 156 lured from the shallow covering of earth and matted creeper to last but a brief season, and then to sleep the whole long winter under the snow.
She sighed and made her way down the hill towards the tent. Beside the fire was Jim, gazing into the past. She thought her husband was like this strange immense land—cruel but magnificent, primal and alluring, yet hateful. As she approached, a similar comparison entered Jim’s mind, with her as the object.
“Cold and proud as a mountain peak,” he muttered. “There’s no sun that can melt her, no storm that can move her. God, but she’s beautiful!”
CHAPTER XI
FRUITLESS TOIL
The two claims on Red Ruin became as honeycombed as a wasp’s nest. Day after day Angela watched the bare-armed, red-shirted figure at work, witnessing his failure with a set face. It became patent that the claims were bad ones, and that Red Ruin was living up to its name. All the labor of driving through matted undergrowth and frozen gravel was vain. “Hope long deferred maketh the heart sick,” and it made Angela’s sick. She knew that sooner or later Jim must accept the inevitable and abandon the quest—there. She hoped it would be soon. After all, failure meant the same as success—to her.