“I’m stronger than you are.”

“Sugar, you’ll never get a husband if you talk like that.”

“I’m not worried.”

“Are you bespoke, ma’am?”

“Not at present, sir.”

“You might be any minute now if you’ll forget that high-school chatter.”

Very stiffly, “Oh, I neglected to tell you. That challenge I mentioned doesn’t really interest me.”

He began to laugh, then, and he pulled her closer to him. “Dear sweet kid, I don’t care about those things. I don’t give a damn. Don’t try to make a noble character out of me, I’m really a son-of-a-bitch. I think the world stinks and I want no part of it. I’m a rich man’s son and I enjoy it in my own way. But no responsibility, thank you very much. Like a clerk in the shipping department—I only work here.”

The library door opened; Louise Husack came in. The two sat facing her, Bay’s arm about Christine, Christine’s golden head so close to his. They did not move, they did not appear embarrassed because they weren’t.

“Hi, Aunt Louise! I’m leading your son astray.”

All the wattles and lines in Mrs. Husack’s face seemed to melt into one radiant smile. “That’s nice.” She cast about the room a cursory glance that would not have discovered a packing case. “I thought I’d left my glasses—but no.” She stepped hastily back into the outer hall, she closed the double doors gently behind her, there was a sort of happy haste about her movements.

“Mom’s up to something,” Bay observed. “When that little mind of hers begins to work it’s as obvious as watching a six-year-old trying to run away.”

Dreamily, as though thinking aloud, she said, “I suppose it’s too easy here. Everything that’s difficult in Baranof is easy here, and taken for granted. Keeping warm. Dressing in winter without being buried in layers of fur and wool. Food. A place to live. Getting from place to place. You can’t imagine how wonderful it seems to me to be able to get into a car and just drive. Drive anywhere! Anywhere you please.”

“What’s so wonderful about that?”

“There are no roads in Alaska—at least, none to speak of, considering how big it is. From town to town, I mean.”

“What’s that highway you hear about?”

“Oh, the Alaska Highway. Yes. That was the War. The Army. But I mean from town to town. Of course we have the planes. That’s wonderful. It’s like freedom after being in prison.”

“If you want roads why don’t you build them?”

“With what?”

“Why don’t you yell for them?”

“Because your crowd chokes us if we try to yell.”

“Now listen, honey, you’re really a little queer about all this, aren’t you? A nice attractive girl, but a little tetched in the head.”

“I know it sounds foolish to you. But we can’t get a word of publicity, we really can’t. There’s so much money—so much Outside money spent to keep everything very, very quiet. My Grampa Thor described it to me and I’ll never forget it. I remember it almost word for word, he can always describe a thing as though it were a picture, and you can see it just like that. He said the thing the Big Boys want is No Publicity. Every other person and every other organization and every other business setup in the whole country seems to be yelling for publicity, but Grampa said that’s exactly what these men don’t want. So every Alaska bill and every Alaska measure and every Alaska voice is killed killed killed. Quietly killed. Alaska, just let it lie there, everything quiet and frozen. Then he said, you’ve never seen a bear fishing. They sit hours and hours, so quiet they don’t seem to be breathing, watching the water, watching the water. Then, so quick your eye can hardly see it, one big paw goes in up to here—snatch—and up the paw comes with a fine salmon. Quiet. Quiet. That’s the Boys Outside. Grampa Thor said.”