Daily Arizona silver belt., 1909-04-04


 MH trader at Flambeau, and
 I'VE many counted him as a friend. The latter never req soned why, except that he had done them favors, and in the north that counts for much. Perhaps they built likewise upon the fact thnt he was ever the same to all and that in days of plenty or in times of famine his store I was open to every man, and all receiv- ed the same measure. Nor did lie raise his prices when the boats were late. They recalled one bleak and blustery autumn when the steamer sank at the Lower Ramparts, taking with her all their winters food, how he eked out his scanty stock. dealing to each and every one his portion month by month. They remembered well the bitter win ter that followed, when the specter of famine haunted their cabins aud when for endless periods they cinched their belts and cursed and went hungry to sleep, accepting day by day the ra- tions doled out to them by the grim, gray man at the log store. Some of them had money belts weighted low with gold washed from the bars at Forty Mile, and there were others who had wandered in from the koyukuk with the first frosts. footsore and drag ging, the legs of their skin boots eaten to the ankle and the taste of dog meat still in their mouths. Broken and dis pirited, these had fared as well through that desperate winter as their brothers from up river and received pound for pound of musty -four, strip for strip of rusty bacon, lump for lump of precious sugar. Moreover, the price of no single thing had risen throughout the famine. He mixed in no mans business. He He spoke in level voice. and he smil- cd but rarely. He gazed at a stranger once and weighed him carefully; there after his eyes sought the distances again, as if in search of some visitor whom he knew or hoped or feared would come.
 This day he stood in the door of his post staring up the sunlit river. ab- sorbing the warmth of the arctic after noon. The Yukon swept down around the great bend beneath the high, cut banks and past the little town. disap- bearing behind the wooded point be- low, which masked the upcoming steamers till one heard the signing la Dor of their stacks before he saw their smoke. sV
 The sound of shouting caused him to turn his head. Downstream, q thou sand yards away, men were raising q flagstaff 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 rivers bank before group of well made houses, the peel ed 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 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 traders mouth deepened, and his heavy brows con tracted.
 '"That means the law" he murmured half aloud.
 He stood so, meditating somberly, till the fragment of a song hummed lightly by girl fell pleasantly on his ears, whereupon the shadows vanished from his face: and he turned expect antly, the edges of his teeth showing beneath his mustache the corners of his eyes wrinkling with pleasure.
 The sight was good to him. for the. girl approaching down the trail was like some wood sprite, light footed, slender and dark, with twin braids of hair to her waist framing an oval face colored by the wind and sun< She was very beautiful. and great fever surged up through the. old mans veins till he gripped the boards at his side