idence was infectious
in spite of her instinctive fears.

The man shrugged his fleshy shoulders under his fur-lined pea-jacket.

"Trade, I guess. We're not here for health. Allan don't fight the
gods of the wilderness or the legion of elemental devils who run this
desert for the play of it. No, this country breeds just one race.
First and last we're wage slaves. Maybe we're more wage slaves north
of 60 degrees than any dull-witted toiler taking his wage by the hour,
and spending it at the end of each week. We're slaves of the big
money, and every man, and many of the women, who cross 60 degrees are
ready to stake their souls as well as bodies, if they haven't already
done so, for the yellow dust that's to buy the physic they'll need to
keep their bodies alive later when they've turned their backs on a
climate that was never built for white men."

Then the seriousness passed for smiling good-nature. It was the look
his round face was made for. It was the manner the girl was accustomed
to.

"Guess this country's a pretty queer book to read," he went on. "And
there aren't any pictures to it, either. Most of us living up here
have opened its covers, and some of us have read. But I guess Allan's
read deeper than any of us. I'd say he's read deeper even than John
Kars. It's for that reason I sold my interests in Seattle an' joined
him ten years ago in the enterprise he'd set up here. It's been tough,
but it's sure been worth it," he observed reflectively. "Yep. Sure it
has." He sighed in a satisfied way. Then his smile deepened, and the
light in his eyes glowed with something like enthusiasm. "Think of it.
You can trade right here just how you darn please. You can make your
own laws, and abide by 'em or break 'em just as you get the notion.
Think of it, we're five hundred miles, five hundred miles of fierce
weather, and the devil's own country, from the coast. We're three
hundred miles from the nearest law of civilization. And, as for
newspapers and the lawmakers, they're fifteen hundred miles of tempest
and every known elemental barrier away. We're kings in our own
country--if we got the nerve. And we don't need to care a whoop so the
play goes on. Can you beat it? No. And Allan knows it all--all.
He's the only man who does--for all your John Kars. I'm glad. Say,
Jessie, it's dead easy to face anything if you feel--just glad."

As he finished speaking the eyes which had held the girl were tur