“Why am I so excited?” Christine demanded.

“Travel,” Thor said. “When you stop being excited by travel you’ve stopped being interested in the world.”

“It’s Alaska,” Bridie announced, loyally. “More north and nearer the Pole. They say it sends out rays that pull you.”

Late June and very cold. Mountains. Tundra. Sea. In the clear air the little wooden houses a mile distant were dark dots on the gray of ice and land. A station wagon awaited the passengers. It resembled a precarious assemblage of weathered driftwood.

Standing apart with two local airplane-company employees, Ross Guildenstern was checking his papers. Luggage was being unloaded. A slim young man stepped languidly out of the decrepit station wagon. There was about him an indefinable but actual elegance, his skin was golden, he was wearing gray slacks and a fawn-color pullover cashmere sweater, he looked vaguely Columbia University sophomore whose highly solvent father (in the wholesale dress-manufacturing business) pampers him.

Ross, glancing up, saw him, he threw an explanatory word to the two men with whom he had been talking, he came swiftly to join the men who now were piling bags on the car top.

“Hi, Norman! Here, let me help with those.” Wordless, the young man lifted a palm in greeting. “Mrs. Ballantyne, this is Norman Raffsky—Mrs. Bridie Ballantyne, one of Baranofs most important citizens.… Miss Christine Storm.” Norman Raffsky inclined his head in the slightest of bows. Thor Storm joined the group now, he put a hand on Norman Raffsky’s shoulder.

“Hello, Norman, my boy.” He did not pause for a return of this greeting, he did not seem to expect an answer. “There are two more passengers, they’re not staying at your place, they’re going to the Airline House, it’s open early this year, isn’t it?”

Norman fluidly transferred himself to the driver’s seat, the Roller Polars, breathless, scrambled into the back, Bridie and Christine already were seated, Thor climbed in beside Norman Raffsky. Ross stuck his head in at the window at which Chris sat, he gestured toward the plane. “I’ll be back tomorrow, sure, and maybe late today if I push it.” He hesitated a second. “Norman’s only eighteen,” he said to no one in particular, his voice very low. He turned away abruptly, he ran swiftly back to the waiting plane.

The car started with a series of convulsive jerks, then they were off in a roar that subsided into a succession of snorts.

“Why did he say that?” Chris whispered to Bridie.

Birdie sniffed. “You know perfectly well why he said it.”

They were nearing the huddle of houses and shacks, they skirted the shore. “Say!” Alwin Polar quavered from the rear seat, “this sure looks like the end of the world—or maybe the beginning, like the history books say, before it begun to thaw out.”

“Wait till you see Barrow,” Thor shouted back, “you’ll think this is Chicago. No offense, Norman. See this while you can, it’s the last of the American wilderness. Ten years from now there’ll be night clubs and movie houses and Five-and-Tens and traffic lights, and tourist bureaus, and automobiles going nowhere, just like the rest of the world.”