The Alaskan

by James Oliver Curwood

“You—and your suspicions and your brutality,” she went on, her voice trembling a little as she drew herself up straight and tense before him. “I wasn’t going to tell you, Mr. Holt. But you have given me the opportunity, and it may do you good—after tomorrow. I came to you because I foolishly misjudged you. I thought you were different, like your mountains. I made a great gamble, and set you up on a pedestal as clean and unafraid and believing all things good until you found them bad—and I lost. I was terribly mistaken. Your first thoughts of me when I came to your cabin were suspicious. You were angry and afraid. Yes, afraid—fearful of something happening which you didn’t want to happen. You thought, almost, that I was unclean. And you believed I was a liar, and told me so. It wasn’t fair, Mr. Holt. It wasn’t fair. There were things which I couldn’t explain to you, but I told you Rossland knew. I didn’t keep everything back. And I believed you were big enough to think that I was not dishonoring you with my—friendship, even though I came to your cabin. Oh, I had that much faith in myself—I didn’t think I would be mistaken for something unclean and lying!”

“Good God!” he cried. “Listen to me—Miss Standish—”

She was gone, so suddenly that his movement to intercept her was futile, and she passed through the door before he could reach her. Again he called her name, but her footsteps were almost running up the passageway. He dropped back, his blood cold, his hands clenched in the darkness, and his face as white as the girl’s had been. Her words had held him stunned and mute. He saw himself stripped naked, as she believed him to be, and the thing gripped him with a sort of horror. And she was wrong. He had followed what he believed to be good judgment and common sense. If, in doing that, he had been an accursed fool—

Determinedly he started for her cabin, his mind set upon correcting her malformed judgment of him. There was no light coming under her door. When he knocked, there was no answer from within. He waited, and tried again, listening for a sound of movement. And each moment he waited he was readjusting himself. He was half glad, in the end, that the door did not open. He believed Miss Standish was inside, and she would undoubtedly accept the reason for his coming without an apology in words.

He went to his cabin, and his mind became increasingly persistent in its disapproval of the wrong viewpoint she had taken of him. He was not comfortable, no matter how he looked at the thing. For her clear eyes, her smoothly glorious hair, and the pride and courage with which she had faced him remained with him overpoweringly. He could not get away from the vision of her as she had stood against the door with tears like diamonds on her cheeks. Somewhere he had missed fire. He knew it. Something had escaped him which he could not understand. And she was holding him accountable.

The talk of the smoking-room did not interest him tonight. His efforts to become a part of it were forced. A jazzy concert of piano and string music in the social hall annoyed him, and a little later he watched the dancing with such grimness that someone remarked about it. He saw Rossland whirling round the floor with a handsome, young blonde in his arms. The girl was looking up into his eyes, smiling, and her cheek lay unashamed against his shoulder, while Rossland’s face rested against her fluffy hair when they mingled closely with the other dancers. Alan turned away, an unpleasant thought of Rossland’s association with Mary Standish in his mind. He strolled down into the steerage. The Thlinkit people had shut themselves in with a curtain of blankets, and from the stillness he judged they were asleep. The evening passed slowly for him after that, until at last he went to his cabin and tried to interest himself in a book. It was something he had anticipated reading, but after a little he wondered if the writing was stupid, or if it was himself. The thrill he had always experienced with this particular writer was missing. There was no inspiration. The words were dead. Even the tobacco in his pipe seemed to lack something, and he changed it for a cigar—and chose another book. The result was the same. His mind refused to function, and there was no comfort in his cigar.

He knew he was fighting against a new thing, even as he subconsciously lied to himself. And he was obstinately determined to win. It was a fight between himself and Mary Standish as she had stood against his door. Mary Standish—the slim beauty of her—her courage—a score of things that had never touched his life before. He undressed and put on his smoking-gown and slippers, repudiating the honesty of the emotions that were struggling for acknowledgment within him. He was a bit mad and entirely a fool, he told himself. But the assurance did him no good.

He went to bed, propped himself up against his pillows, and made another effort to read. He half-heartedly succeeded. At ten o’clock music and dancing ceased, and stillness fell over the ship. After that he found himself becoming more interested in the first book he had started to read. His old satisfaction slowly returned to him. He relighted his cigar and enjoyed it. Distantly he heard the ship’s bells, eleven o’clock, and after that the half-hour and midnight. The printed pages were growing dim, and drowsily he marked his book, placed it on the table, and yawned. They must be nearing Cordova. He could feel the slackened speed of the Nome and the softer throb of her engines. Probably they had passed Cape St. Elias and were drawing inshore.

And then, sudden and thrilling, came a woman’s scream. A piercing cry of terror, of agony—and of something else that froze the blood in his veins as he sprang from his berth. Twice it came, the second time ending in a moaning wail and a man’s husky shout. Feet ran swiftly past his window. He heard another shout and then a voice of command. He could not distinguish the words, but the ship herself seemed to respond. There came the sudden smoothness of dead engines, followed by the pounding shock of reverse and the clanging alarm of a bell calling boats’ crews to quarters.

Alan faced his cabin door. He knew what had happened. Someone was overboard. And in this moment all life and strength were gone out of his body, for the pale face of Mary Standish seemed to rise for an instant before him, and in her quiet voice she was telling him again that this was the other way. His face went white as he caught up his smoking-gown, flung open his door, and ran down the dimly lighted corridor.