Favorite places and dreaming of favorite places were a favored pastime of Daggerfjord's; one might say it was his only chance at repose. Busy man, he was. Busy, and preoccupied with women. Somehow, he seemed to manage both activities with equal zeal, that is, dreaming of favorite places such as hillocks, billibongs and butts, (not unlike Mollie's but never discounting others)and still managed to be an ace at his principle endeavor - daring do.

Was he ever about to get his fill of it all. Fullfillment of his dreams of faraway billibongs and butts, tripping the light fantastic with beautiful women like Margott from the watering hole, or Bridgute from o'er in Siler City. Exotic women from far-away lands he'd only heard of as a young boy of twelve whilst at his Uncle Thud's knee-cap.

Tangling with the Texan, Bigoyle and that damned Zhpat would prove quite a fanciful adventure for the soul of the boy trapped in that haired-over suit of the man, Daggerfjord.

Always the one to put his best foot forward, Daggerfjord pondered a while longer on the beauty of the hillock and at once was awakened to reality by the cackeling of some horrific and horrifying screech. A sound not unlike the synchonized slow death of one thousand civilizations in a terrible encounter with a meteor that rained not firey brimstone, but rather, a viscous and warm, amber fluid that would remind one of that which emanates from the homeless after a mad-dog night of cigarettes and frothy, warm swill.

Yes, he suspected, it was the distant screech of the White Mallard. Oh, but wait. He then heard the voice of his Mother calling out from far away "It is only a story, Wit" for that is what she called him, Daggerfjord, as a lad "Wit, you must not give in to fantasy. Life can be quite challenging without all that rubbish.".

So, he shook it off as something related to bad swill and decided to arrange for transport. But where would he go?

Ah, he'd heard once that the Mallard hailed from a land to the North. Now, given his penchant for Shakespearean tragedy, he'd decided that fantasy or not, all the ghosts that had been talking to him in his noggin this morning must be a harbinger of some sort.

To the Northlund it is. "Alaska, here I come!".

Over a distand hill, a group of near-sighted hunters could be seen chasing wounded geese through a field. One of the more lucky among them (for he had actually killed his quary) caught sight of a man dashing across the open range with a stick raised in triumphant charge yelling "The hunt is on! The hunt is on. North to Alaska, North, the rush is on!".

The pensive hunter rubbed his chin whiskers, shrugged his shoulders and wrote the whole affair off to one of those crazed gold-digging mad men heading for some chunk of shimmering bounty wrestled from the frosty and frigid mistress that is the Yukon.

He went back to dealing with his own gold, the goose that would tonight be cooked to golden brown and he thought how he hoped that the fool in the field would not find a simlar fate to his feathered friend atop this ice-covered cleaning board of death.