Only the greedy and stupid attempt the White Pass. They try by the hundreds each week.

For several moments, Mary couldn't hear anything over the violent pounding of her pulse.

He smiled. "I suppose I thought we'd have a madly impractical, terrifyingly modern sort of marriage. One based on love. Not to mention dangerous undertakings and hair's-breadth escapes from burning buildings, high ledges and exploding sewers."

"And bickering."

"Always that, yes."

"Assuming I want to marry at all."

"True. I know of no good way of forcing you to do anything."

"And you're mad enough to think it could work - one day?"

He cupped her face in his hands. His smile was so brilliant it seemed to illuminate the room. "I think it would be heaven."

She trembled, then. "You have a very strange idea of heaven."

"Kiss me and see.

Gallien cứ băn khoăn không hiểu liệu có phải anh đã nhặt ở cuối bang thứ bốn mươi tám một trong những gã khùng muốn lên phía Bắc để sống như trong những câu chuyện tưởng tượng xốc nổi kiểu Jack London hay không. Alaska từ lâu đã là một thỏi nam châm đối với các anh chàng mơ mộng và không thích nghi được với xã hội, những kẻ cho rằng sự khắc nghiệt cực độ của chốn thâm sơn cùng cốc sẽ lấp đầy những hố thẳm trong cuộc đời họ.

The following obituary appeared in the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph of Sept. 16, 1958:

A GREAT POET died last week in Lancieux, France, at the age of 84.

He was not a poet's poet. Fancy-Dan dilletantes will dispute the description "great."

He was a people's poet. To the people he was great. They understood him, and knew that any verse carrying the by-line of Robert W. Service would be a lilting thing, clear, clean and power-packed, beating out a story with a dramatic intensity that made the nerves tingle.

And he was no poor, garret-type poet, either. His stuff made money hand over fist. One piece alone, The Shooting of Dan McGrew, rolled up half a million dollars for him. He lived it up well and also gave a great deal to help others.

"The only society I like," he once said, "is that which is rough and tough - and the tougher the better. That's where you get down to bedrock and meet human people."

He found that kind of society in the Yukon gold rush, and he immortalized it.

But why Alaska?' I asked her.

'Well, later, I found out what it means. It's from an Aleut word, Alyeska. It means 'that which the sea breaks against,' and I love that. But at the time, I just saw Alaska up there. And it was big, just like I wanted to be.