-lit river,
absorbing the warmth of the Arctic afternoon. The Yukon swept down
around the great bend beneath the high, cut banks and past the little
town, disappearing behind the wooded point below, which masked the
up-coming steamers till one heard the sighing labor of their stacks
before he saw their smoke. It was a muddy, rushing giant, bearing a
burden of sand and silt, so that one might hear it hiss and grind by
stooping at its edge to listen; but the slanting sun this afternoon
made it appear like a boiling flood of molten gold which issued
silently out of a land of mystery and vanished into a valley of
forgetfulness. At least so the trader fancied, and found himself
wishing that it might carry away on its bosom the heavy trouble which
weighed him down, and bring in its place forgetfulness of all that had
gone before. Instead, however, it seemed to hurry with news of those
strange doings "up-river," news that every down-coming steamboat
verified. For years he had known that some day this thing would happen,
that some day this isolation would be broken, that some day great
hordes of men would overrun this unknown land, bringing with them that
which he feared to meet, that which had made him what he was. And now
that the time had come, he was unprepared.

The sound of shouting caused him to turn his head. Down-stream, a
thousand yards away, men were raising a flag-staff made from the trunk
of a slender fir, from which the bark had been stripped, heaving on
their tackle as they sang in unison. They stood well out upon the
river's bank before a group of well-made houses, the peeled timbers of
which shone yellow in the sun. He noted the symmetrical arrangement of
the buildings, noted the space about them that had been smoothed for a
drill-ground, and from which the stumps had been removed; noted that
the men wore suits of blue; and noted, in particular, the figure of an
officer commanding them.

The lines about the trader's mouth deepened, and his heavy brows
contracted.

"That means the law," he murmured, half aloud, while in his voice was
no trace of pleasure, nor of that interest which good men are wont to
show at sight of the flag. "The last frontier is gone. The trail ends
here!"

He stood so, meditating sombrely, till the fragment of a song hummed
lightly by a girl fell pleasantly on his ears, whereupon the shadows
vanished from his face, and he turned expectantly, the edges of his
teeth showing beneath his