or listened to him before. He
had shown her Skagway. Between the mountains he pictured the wind-racked
canon where Skagway grew from one tent to hundreds in a day, from
hundreds to thousands in a week; he visioned for her the old days of
romance, adventure, and death; he told her of Soapy Smith and his gang
of outlaws, and side by side they stood over Soapy's sunken grave as the
first somber shadows of the mountains grew upon them.

But among it all, and through it all, she had asked him about _himself_.
And he had responded. Until now he did not realize how much he had
confided in her. It seemed to him that the very soul of this slim and
beautiful girl who had walked at his side had urged him on to the
indiscretion of personal confidence. He had seemed to feel her heart
beating with his own as he described his beloved land under the Endicott
Mountains, with its vast tundras, his herds, and his people. There, he
had told her, a new world was in the making, and the glow in her eyes
and the thrilling something in her voice had urged him on until he
forgot that Rossland was waiting at the ship's gangway to see when they
returned. He had built up for her his castles in the air, and the
miracle of it was that she had helped him to build them. He had
described for her the change that was creeping slowly over Alaska, the
replacement of mountain trails by stage and automobile highways, the
building of railroads, the growth of cities where tents had stood a few
years before. It was then, when he had pictured progress and
civilization and the breaking down of nature's last barriers before
science and invention, that he had seen a cloud of doubt in her
gray eyes.

And now, as they stood on the deck of the _Nome_ looking at the white
peaks of the mountains dissolving into the lavender mist of twilight,
doubt and perplexity were still deeper in her eyes, and she said:

"I would always love tents and old trails and nature's barriers. I envy
Belinda Mulrooney, whom you told me about this afternoon. I hate cities
and railroads and automobiles, and all that goes with them, and I am
sorry to see those things come to Alaska. And I, too, hate this
man--John Graham!"

Her words startled him.

"And I want you to tell me what he is doing--with his money--now." Her
voice was cold, and one little hand, he noticed, was clenched at the
edge of the rail.

"He has stripped Alaskan waters of fish resources which will never be
replaced, Miss