“Perhaps not as lacking as they seem. They must have courage of a sort, or they wouldn’t be here. I suppose you could say that of any pioneer.”

“Call these fellers pioneers!”

“Why not! They’re dissatisfied and want something better—freedom or land or peace or money. The early ones crossed the sea to Massachusetts or Virginia, the later ones crossed the continent to California or Oregon. They started because they were dissatisfied or curious or ambitious or adventurous. The frightened and the cautious stayed behind, even if they were dissatisfied. And they let the world roll over them. We’re all different in the same way—you and I and those men—and even those women, too—or we wouldn’t be here.”

“Don’t lump me in with that parcel. They’re after gold. You get bit by that craze it isn’t courage drives you. It’s a kind of”—he searched for the word—“a kind of frenzy takes hold of you. Now, you don’t look like that, wild-eyed.”

“No, I’m not after gold.” Again the silence.

“What then?” Persistence was a trait that later contributed much to Czar’s success.

Thor Storm looked down at the water churning below, and then up at the Northern sky so strangely bright above them at this night hour. “New strange people. New adventure. New discovery. Like my ancestors who discovered America.”

“You don’t look like an Italian, or talk like one.”

“I was born in Norway. My people for cen—all my people have been Norwegian.”

“Well, say, Columbus discovered America, any kid knows that. He was Italian.”

“The Norsemen touched here long before Columbus. And the Eskimos were here before that. But it doesn’t matter. If you think those men in the saloon are fools I suppose you’re not looking for gold, either.” His accent was almost pure Oxford English.

This unconscious elegance of speech irritated Kennedy into a boasting loquacity unusual in his canny pattern of behavior. “Not me! I’m too smart for that. Let them freeze in the wilderness and starve and scratch for a few crumbs of gold. What’s gold, anyway!”

Thor Storm turned to look at this man, then, deliberately. He smiled a little. “Gold is a soft metal chemically formed in the earth. It isn’t as beautiful as quartz or common mica or even copper. But there’s less of it and it’s more difficult to find, and nations have made it the medium of exchange. If they decided on coal, for example, or oyster shells, or coral, then those would have been precious. Like wampum used by the North American Indians.”

“You sound like a smart fella,” Kennedy said, grudgingly.

“No, I’m not what you would call smart. I’m only intelligent.”

“Well, I am. I’m smart.” Curiously, there now was no note of boasting in his voice. It was said as a simple statement of fact. “I’m headed for the camp they call Baranof. They say that’s the place with a future. Not like Nome, they’d skin you alive and throw your bones into the Bering Sea. Baranof I hear they’ve put up wooden houses and a land office and a bank and there’s talk of running a railroad from there to the coast. I know where I’m headed in, but I don’t make any sense out of what you said—new people—new discovery. Where’s the money in that?”