els had something
to show. The point that weighed was that he was willing to go home at last
to the States. I had urged him before I put up the grub-stake, but he had
answered: 'Not until I have made good.' It was hardly probable that,
failing to hear from me, he had sold out to any one else. From his
description, the Aurora was isolated; hundreds of miles from the new
Iditarod camp; he hadn't a neighbor in fifty miles. So I forwarded his
price and arranged with the mail carrier to send a special messenger on
from the nearest post. In the letter I wrote to explain my delay, I
sketched a plan of my summer's work and told him how sorry I was I had
missed seeing him while the party was camped below Rainy Pass. Though I
couldn't have spared the time to go to the Aurora, he might have found me,
had I sent an Indian with word. It was the first time I had gone through
his orbit without letting him know.

"But after that carrier had gone, Weatherbee's letter kept worrying me. It
wasn't like him to complain, yet he had written he was tired of the
eternal winters; he couldn't stand those everlasting snow peaks sometimes,
they got to crowding him so; they kept him awake when he needed sleep,
threatening him. 'I've got to break away from them, Hollis,' he said, 'and
get where it's warm once more; and when my blood begins to thaw, I'll show
you I can make a go of things.' Then he reminded me of the land he owned
down here on the eastern slopes of the Cascade Mountains. The soil was the
finest volcanic ash; the kind that grew the vineyards on Vesuvius, and he
meant to plant it with grapes; with orchards, too, on the bench levels.
All the tract needed was water, but there was a natural reservoir and
spring on a certain high plateau that could be easily tapped with a
flume."

Tisdale paused while his glance moved slowly, singling out those who had
known Weatherbee. A great gentleness rested on his face, and when he went
on, it crept like a caress through his voice. "Most of you have heard him
talk about that irrigation scheme; some of you have seen those plans he
used to-work on, long Alaska nights. It was his dream for years. He went
north in the beginning just to accumulate capital enough to swing that
project. But the more I studied that letter, the more confident I was he
had stayed his limit; he was breaking, and he knew it. That was why he was
so anxious to turn the Aurora over to me and get to the States. Finally I
decided to g