The old man and the two women were silent and thoughtful as they descended the steps and plunged in ankle-deep dust toward the lunchroom. Eskimo boys passed them, in pairs and groups, they wore black leather jackets and tight pants, they were hatless and crew cut, their stiff bristling black hair lending itself to the mode. They did not join the girls, they glanced at them with quick slanting looks. One of the girls rated a second glance, she even garnered a wolf whistle. Her sturdy legs, in the cold Arctic evening, were sleek in sheer nylon stockings like all the others, but about the ankles they were ornamented with brilliant sequins, scarlet and silver and gold, in a pattern of butterflies and flowers that sparkled in the glaring night sun. She was wearing sandals with open toes and a back strap slipped over the heel. Boys and girls on their way to the Saturday-night dance, to the movie, to the lunchroom Coke, there in the polar night, like tens of millions of boys and girls from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific coast to the Arctic coast.

Almost defiantly Christine said, “I think they look darling.”

“Who said they didn’t?” Bridie retorted. They had come abreast of the sequin-stockinged girl. As though to prove her broad-mindedness Bridie smiled at her as they passed. “My, you look pretty, all dressed up!”

“Thank you.” Quite charmingly. Even polar Barrow was inured to tourists by now. “Are you coming to the dance?”

“Me! I’m too old to dance, dear.”

The girl stared at the pink cheeks, the snapping blue eyes, she shook her head, smiling. “Oh, no. My grandmother dances. She’s much older than you, nobody knows how old, she must be sixty.”

As they turned toward the restaurant Bridie pondered this. “It started out kind of backhanded, but it turned out a compliment.”

“That poor fellow,” Thor mused, aloud. “Stir-crazy, I suppose, more than just drunk on a couple of cans of beer. You see it all the time now, in Alaska. They come here from Outside and they’re not used to it. Alone too long.”

“Nobody makes him stay, do they?” Christine asked, briskly. “He isn’t Army. Why does he stay, then?”

“Money, Christine. Money.”

“The way you say money,” Bridie said, rather crossly for her, “a person would think it was something dirty.”

“Money’s just wonderful!” Chris declared. “It paid for this trip, and look at your lovely coat and hat, Bridie, and my education in Seattle when I go. And everything. I like money.”

“So do I, Christine. I even think it’s more important than you do. I’ve been fighting all my life to have money earned in Alaska stay in Alaska and pay for all the things Alaska needs. That drunken lonely construction worker or cat-skinner or whatever he is typifies that old saying about Alaska and Outsiders—you know it—Get in, get it, and get out.”

“Thor Storm, if you’re going to give one of your lectures in the lunchroom I won’t set foot, I’ll go to bed starving, sooner.”