ith considerable heat the rigors of the journey.
The purple parka, which was the regalia of the Circle, seemed to increase
his prominence of front and intensified the color in his face to a sort of
florid ripeness.

"Yes, gentlemen," he continued, thumping the table with a stout hand and
repeating the gesture slowly, while the glasses trembled, "Alaska's crying
need is a railroad; a single finished line from the most northern harbor
open to navigation the whole year--and that is Prince William Sound--
straight through to the Tanana Valley and the upper Yukon. Already the
first problem has been solved; we have pierced the icy barrier of the
Coast Range. All we are waiting for is further right of way; the right to
the forests, that timber may be secured for construction work; the right
to mine coal for immediate use. But, gentlemen, we may grow gray waiting.
What do men four thousand miles away, men who never saw Alaska, care about
our needs?" He leaned back in his chair, while his glance moved from face
to face and rested, half in challenge, on the member at the foot of the
board. "These commissioners appointed off there in Washington," he added.
"These carpet-baggers from the little States beyond the Mississippi!"

Hollis Tisdale, who had spent some of the hardest years of his Alaska
career in the service of the Government, met the delegate's look with a
quiet humor in his eyes.

"It seems to me," he said, and his deep, expressive voice instantly held
the attention of every one, "that such a man, with intelligence and
insight, of course, stands the surest chance of giving general
satisfaction in the end. He is at least disinterested, while the best of
us, no matter how big he is, how clear-visioned, is bound to take his own
district specially to heart. Prince William Sound alone has hundreds of
miles of coast-line and includes more than one fine harbor with an
ambitious seaport."

At this a smile rippled around the table, and Miles Feversham, who was the
attorney for one of the most ambitious syndicates of promoters in the
north, gave his attention to the menu. But Tisdale, having spoken, turned
his face to the open balcony door. His parka was thrown back, showing an
incongruous breadth of stiff white bosom, yet he was the only man present
who wore the garment with grace. In that moment the column of throat
rising from the purple folds, the upward, listening pose of the fine head,
in relief against the bearskin on th