The Daily Alaska empire., 1934-01-20
43 .FORBIDDEN VALLEY
 |-A4sesszzesAa- S4 WIGanu 3qaom Plowe4

lndl 5 dH dWIulIy ulSH pOSltlOu IoE me to live up to, Curt. don't know whether l can make good at it CT not"
 But think of what I'll have to live up to. sweet. Look"-he took her hand and laid it upon his own, her slender tapering fingers upon his rough calloused ones.
 Don't" Sonya stopped him. She raised his hand to her lips. This hand fought for me, and was wounded Do you remember" were passing Curtis tent-"remem- Der the evening when 1 came by here and Paul said Bon soir' to me? didn't know you were in the tent or even that you existed. Six weeks ago it doesn't seem possible. Curt"
 A thousand yards from the post they sat down on a lichen-covered rock near the wave edge. Sonya nes- tied against him, her tired head against his shoulder.
 She was motionless and silent so long that he believed she must have dropped off to sleep, but when he glanced down he saw that she was looking up at him. studying him.
 "You're sorry, aren't you, Curt?"
 "Sorry-for what, dear?"
 That we're not going to live in a country like this. That we're going back to the cities"
 q am, little." he admitted. "l cant help being. dear. But my place is down there. You helped me see that. And besides, we'll have all this summer for our honeymoon in the Liluars. I'm being honest with you, Sonya-I don't want to go back down north. This work I'm taking on is a responsible position. and I'm egoist enough to believe that even. tually I'll climb on past it."
 CHE twined her fingers with his. as O though she had been worrying about his happiness and now was reassured by his words.
 In the distance he could see the ruddy glow of old Johns campfire and the twinkle of figures passing back and forth in front of it. A night wind rustling in the woods behind brought him the purl of an overfalls and the sad elemental song of the pines.
 Low in the southwestern sky red Antares, Sonya's tryst star and the star he had watched at Ralph's death. was sinking out of sight in notch between two mountains.
 When he glanced down at Sonya again, long minutes later, he saw that her eyes were closed. He did moi stir, or wake her; it was coo pre- cious to have her asleep in his arms She seemed so different at heart from what she had been on thei, trip north-more cheerful and al peace. With the death of Karakhan a black load had fallen away from her. She could begin to forget that tragedy in distant foggy Vladivos- tok. and start to live again.
 He marveled at the strange des- tiny which had brought her to him from the Volga of old Russia. across Siberia, China, Canada. to this north. ern wilderness where he and she had met. He thought of the night when he had seen her looking out into the rain, lonely and moody, with that fearful trip ahead of her.
 Far away across the lake a wolf lifted it's wailing crescendo. it's voice laden with the loneliness and say agery and beauty of the Northland. He would miss all that. Curt thought sorrowfully-the Arctic prairies, the Nahanni Mountains, the happy free dom which had been his for year and which he would put behind him irrevocably that fall.
 It seemed to him that when he had sent his plane crashing into Karakhan's ship. it had been like folding up his wings and bidding goodbye to adventure. From the very beginning of the Karakhan hunt intangible bonds had been tightening upon him little by little. drawing him back to his destined course of life.
 But he did not feel that he was leaving the wilderness for good and all. They could come back to it, he and Sonya, and live for a while in it.
 There would be times when they would need to come back-to keep their perspective and get new hold on their strength. What if he did regret the musk-ox prairies and the white-wolf hills? One could not have everything.
 He felt. as he smoothed wisp of hair from Sonya's cheek. that he had received his full share, and more. He had health and courage. and a position that challenged all his powers, and the vista of still more challenging heights toward which he and Sonya could climb together.
 (Copyri0ht. Winiam B. Mouery)