“God Almighty!” The joker who was reading this letter looked up at his fellow conspirators. “This one’s coming. She’s left. Boys, I’m getting out of here until this blows over. I’m going out to the creek and stay. Anyway, thank God, Czar ain’t here but he’ll be back maybe even by the time she … look, I’m getting the hell out of here for a spell, anyway. Right now.”

Bridie Ballantyne took the small sum she had somehow hoarded—the great heavy American silver dollars that, big and shining though they were, still seemed to buy so little in this hugeous west place Indian-named Seattle—pagan Indian images mind you, to be had in the shops down by the river.

It was a staggering journey by boat, by train, by boat again. When first she had come to Seattle some of her old-world rosy coloring still bloomed in her cheeks. But before she left for Alaska, what with the hospital work, the preparations for the journey, and a clutch of doubt and fear at her vitals, she looked quite gray-faced as she came aboard.

The suit she had managed to buy for the journey was just the latest thing in Seattle, a long flaring skirt very grand, with three spaced rows of satin banding from the knees to the hem. The bodice had the new leg-o’-mutton sleeves and a high ruched collar. There was a jacket too, mind you, of the same stuff as the dress, and its sleeves were even bigger than the bodice sleeves, as they had better be. Topping this splendor was an ulster with a good collar, it buttoned right up to the throat, warm brown-and-gray woolen stuff, no shoddy for Bridie Ballantyne; and her hat was a broad-brimmed sailor sporting not a mere wing but an entire bird nesting in a sort of copse of flowers and shrubbery. Even in that day Bridie knew what the well-dressed woman was wearing. Her mother, back home in Ireland, had been a seamstress.

In the dour Lancashire hospital of her student training days, before ever she had set foot on the New World, she had bolstered her energy, her spirits, by singing a familiar song as she scrubbed and swabbed and emptied slops. Thousands of immigrant boys and girls before her had sung it in anticipation.

Adieu unto your Liffey Banks,

Your Mourne Waters wide,

I’m sailing for Ameriky,

Whatever may betide.

Whatever may betide. Well, good or bad, it was too late now, she told herself as, days later, she stepped off the boat. There was no one to meet her, scan the faces though she would. She clambered up the refuse-strewn beach to the main street of the town, a street of log cabins and tents. She stood a panic-stricken moment staring at mountains and water and sky. Seattle had accustomed her to the impact of lavish panoramas, but compared to this, Seattle was cosy. She lowered her gaze from the vast vision to the nearer sights. Sordid dwellings, dirt, bearded men. She never had seen a human settlement such as this.