He was going _home_.

And home meant Alaska.

It meant the mountains, the vast tundras, the immeasurable spaces into which civilization had not yet come with its clang and clamor.

It meant friends, the stars he knew, his herds, everything he loved.

Such was his reaction after six months of exile, six months of loneliness and desolation in cities which he had learned to hate.
"I'll not make the trip again--not for a whole winter--unless I'm sent at the point of a gun," he said to Captain Rifle, a few moments after Mary Standish had left the deck.