Newark evening star and Newark advertiser., 1910-10-27

! This was not the effect for which the
! girl had striven; her younger guests
taciturnity, which grew as the dinner
progressed, piqued her. so at the first
opportunity she bent her efforts toward
rallying him. He answered politely,
but she was powerless to shake off his
mood. 1t was not abashment, as she
realized when, from the corner of her
eye, she observed him covertly stroke
the linen and finger the silver as If
to renew a sense of touch long unused.
Being unaccustomed to any sort of in
difference In men, his spiritless de-
meanor put her on her mettle, yet all
to no avail; she could not find a seam
in that mask of listless abstraction.
At last he spoke of his own accord
you said those watchmen have in
structions not to harbor travellers Why
Is that?"
They are afraid somebody will dis
cover gold around here"
"Yes?"
river in the world; the run is tre-
mendous, and seems to be unfailing
hence the cannery people wish to keep
1t all to themselves"
IT don't quite understand
at is simple enough Kalvik is SO
Isolated and the fishing season is SO
short that the Companies have to send
their crews in from the States and
take them out again every summer.
Now, II gold were discovered here
abouts the fishermen would all quit
and follow the STRIKE, which would
mean the ruin of the years catch and
the loss of many hundreds of thou
sands of dollars, for there is no way
of importing new help during the short
summer months. Why, this village
would become city in no time If
such thing were to happen; the whole
region would fill UP with miners, and
not only would labor conditions be en-
tirely upset for years. but the eyes of
the world, being turned this way other
people might go into the fishing bust
ness and create a competition which
would both influence prices and de-
plete the supply of fish ~ the Kalvik
river So you see there are many rea-
sons why this region is forbidden TO
miners
'T see."
You couldn't buy a pound of food
nor get a nights lodging here for a
kings ranso n. The watchmen's Jobs
depend upon their unbroken bond of
inhospitality. and the Indians dare not
sell you anything, not even dogfsn,
under penalty of starvation, for they
are dependent upon the Companies
stores"
so that IS why you have established
q trading-post of your own"
"Oh, dear, no. This isn't a store.
This food is for my men"
Your men?"
Eyes, I have a crew out in the hills
on a grub stake. This is our cache.
While they prospect for gold 1 stand
guard over the provisions"
Fraser chuckled softly. "Then you
are bucking the Salmon Trust?"
After a fashion, yes. / knew this
country had never been gone over, so
| staked six men, chartered a schooner
and came .lown here from Nome in
the early spring. We stood off the
watchmen and when the supply ships
arrived we mad these houses completed
and my men were out In the hills
where is was hard to follow them
stayed behind, and stood the brunt
of things"
"But surely they didn't undertake to
injure you?" said Emerson, now thor
oughly interested in this extraordinary
young woman.
"Oh, didn't theyl" she answered, with
a peculiar laugh You don't appreciate
the character of these people. When a
man fights for money, just plain, sordid
money. he loses all sense of honor,
chivalry and decency, he employs any
means that come handy. There is no
real code of financial morality and the
battle for dollars is the bitterest of all
contests. of course, teing woman
they couldn't very well attack me per-