The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Trail of '98, by Robert W. Service,
Illustrated by Maynard Dixon

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Title: The Trail of '98
A Northland Romance

Author: Robert W. Service

Release Date: July 13, 2007 [eBook #22063]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

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THE TRAIL OF '98

A Northland Romance

by

ROBERT W. SERVICE

Author of
"The Spell of the Yukon" and "Ballads of a Cheechako"

With illustrations by Maynard Dixon

[Illustration: We were in a caldron of fire. The roar of doom was in our
ears (page 143)]

New York
Dodd, Mead and Company
1911

Copyright, 1910, by
Dodd, Mead and Company

Entered at Stationers' Hall

The Quinn & Boden Co. Press
Rahway, N. J.

PRELUDE

The north wind is keening overhead. It minds me of the howl of a
wolf-dog under the Arctic stars. Sitting alone by the glow of the
great peat fire I can hear it high up in the braeside firs. It is
the voice, inexorably scornful, of the Great White Land.

Oh, I hate it, I hate it! Why cannot a man be allowed to forget? It is
near ten years since I joined the Eager Army. I have travelled: I have
been a pilgrim to the shrines of beauty; I have pursued the phantom of
happiness even to the ends of the earth. Still it is always the same--I
cannot forget.

Why should a man be ever shadowed by the vampire wing of his past? Have
I not a right to be happy? Money, estate, name, are mine, all that means
an open sesame to the magic door. Others go in, but I beat against its
flinty portals with hands that bleed. No! I have no right to be happy.
The ways of the world are open; the banquet of life is spread; the
wonder-workers plan their pagea