A light was beginning to dispel the little man's bewilderment as they started toward the Range.

He had seen Mary Standish frequently aboard the _Nome_; a number of times he had observed her in Alan's company, and he knew of the hours they had spent together in Skagway.

Therefore, if Alan had believed her dead when they went ashore at Cordova, a few hours after the supposed tragedy, it must have been she who jumped into the sea.

He shrugged his shoulders in deprecation of his failure to discover this amazing fact in his association with Mary Standish.
"It beats the devil!" he exclaimed suddenly.
"It does," agreed Alan.
Cold, hard reason began to shoulder itself inevitably against the happiness that possessed him, and questions which he had found no interest in asking when aboard ship leaped upon him with compelling force.

Why was it so tragically important to Mary Standish that the world should believe her dead?
What was it that had driven her to appeal to him and afterward to jump into the sea?
What was her mysterious association with Rossland, an agent of Alaska's deadliest enemy, John Graham--the one man upon whom he had sworn vengeance if opportunity ever came his way?
Over him, clubbing other emotions with its insistence, rode a demand for explanations which it was impossible for him to make.
Stampede saw the tense lines in his face and remained silent in the lengthening twilight, while Alan's mind struggled to bring coherence and reason out of a tidal wave of mystery and doubt.