Judge Gannon: “It’s the newcomers mostly who can’t take it, Mr. Husack. There is endless work to be done. Some of the Johnny-come-latelys come here on the old principle they’ve heard about Alaska—Get in, get it, and get out. But each person is important in a community where there is a constant battle against stupendous natural antagonists—cold, ice, snow, vast distances, few humans. The proportion of insanity is high here. Claustrophobia, I suppose.”

Nate Berman: “I’ve got quite a nice little collection of native curios and artifacts and so on. I have quite a lot of fun with one of them, maybe if you have time you can drop round and see them. Never forget the time I was showing the collection to the General’s wife. I’ve got a short cane about the size of a swagger stick, but much thicker. It looks and feels like old ivory. It’s really the penis of a big male walrus. Well, the General’s wife let out a squawk.…”

Isabel Berg: “Three or four years in Alaska and you’re caught. Even if you leave you’re marked for life. It’s the way you feel about the man you loved but didn’t marry. You can marry somebody else and even be happy, but you never forget the other, you’re his, in a way, for life. I’ve known people to go from here to live in California.…”

Cale Korf: “The airplane is our First Citizen and Czar Kennedy our Second. No offense I hope, Chris. Without the planes we’d be set back a hundred years. And without Czar Kennedy—well, when he goes the whole Territory will be in mourning—not that he isn’t hale and hearty and good for another fifty years this minute. I hope.”

Ott Decker: “Gold used to be the medium of exchange, then it was copper, then salmon, pretty soon I shouldn’t wonder, oil! Wait till they really hit it here. Zowie!”

Mead Haskell: “The black and the brown people are in the majority now all over the world, and they’re learning fast, if you’ll just read the writing on the wall.…”

Dina: “Look, we’re leaving tomorrow, of course I know we’ll be stopping by on our way back, but wouldn’t it be fun if we could just take a whirl out to what you call the Strip? I mean, I’d love Bay to see it. I hear there’s the most marvelous Negro dancer at a place called Dahlia’s—–”

“Dahlia’s place was closed just today, one of the girls there rolled a soldier, the poor kid had three hundred dollars on him.” Judge Gannon.

The sound of heavy footsteps in the entrance, a door closed gently. Chris thought, without being aware of her own thinking, He walks more heavily than he used to, though he weighs less. Thor came in. A little greeting gesture of the hand and the head, quiet, almost self-effacing, no matter what he wore, he always, somehow, appeared neater and cleaner than most men, perhaps merely because of the fine pink skin. You could see the path of the careful comb through the once golden hair, silver now. He was wearing a prim blue and white polka-dot bow tie. The boyishness of this sent a sudden pang through Christine’s heart.