wholly without merit, but Seal Bay
would have sent the most hardened real estate agent seeking shelter in a
sanatorium as a result of overwork. Still, traffic was possible. Seal
Bay was an ideal spot for robbing Indian and half-breed fur traders who
knew no better, and the plunder could be more or less safely dispatched
to the markets of the world outside. Oh, yes, there was easy money and
plenty. So what else mattered?

These were the opinions of those who really counted, such men as Lorson
Harris, head of the Seal Bay Trading Corporation, and Alroy Leclerc,
who kept a mud shelter of extensive dimensions for the sale of drink and
food and gambling. There were others, those who came over the great
white trail from the north, who possessed very definite opinions of
their own, but were wise enough to refrain from ventilating them within
the city limits.

A man who hugged to himself very strong views had just entered the city.
He always came when Seal Bay was quite at its best. It may have been
simple chance. Anyway, it was one of the coldest days of winter, with a
sharp north wind blowing, and the thermometer hard down to zero. Seal
Bay's sins lay concealed under a thick garment of snow, while its
surrounding terrors were rendered innocuous by the iron grip of frost.

Seal Bay was astir. It always was astir when this man paid his annual
visit. He excited a curiosity that never flagged. His coming was looked
for. His going was watched. His coming and going were two of the most
baffling riddles confronting the sophisticated minds of a people whose
pursuits had no relation to purity or honesty.

The man came with three great dog-trains. Sometimes he came with four,
and even five. His sleds were heavy laden, packed to the limits of the
capacity of his dogs. They, in turn, were more powerful and better
conditioned than any Indian train that visited the place, and each was a
full train of five savage creatures more than half wolf.

He drove straight through the main thoroughfare of the town. The
onlookers were fully aware of his destination. It was the great
store-house over which Lorson Harris presided. And this knowledge set
much ill-feeling and resentment stirring. It was always the same. The
sturdy, hard-faced man from the north ignored Seal Bay as a community,
and only recognized a fellow creature in the great man who wove the net
which the Seal Bay Trading Corporation spread over the Northern world.

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