Tombstone epitaph., 1918-03-17
CHAPTER |,
 -1- GolnQ ~in."

0olng ~ln!"
 The midnight sun had set. but in a crotch between two snow peaks 1t had kindled vast caldron from which rose . mist of jewels. garnet and turquoise. topaz and amethyst and opal. all swimming in a sea of molten gold. The glow of 1t still clung to the face of the broad Yukon. as a flush does to the soft. wrinkled cheek of a girl just reused from deep sleep.
 Except for e faint murkiness in the air it was still day. There was light enough for the four men playing pi- nochle on the upper deck, though the women of their party, gossiping in chairs grouped near at hand. had at last put aside their embroidery. The girl who sat by herself at little dis tance held a magazine still open in her lap.
 Gordon Elliot had taken the boat at Pierre's Portage. fifty miles farther down the river. He had come direct from the creeks. and his impressions of the motley pioneer life at the gold diggings were so vivid that he had found an isolated corner of the deck where he could scribble them in a note book while still fresh.
 But he had not been too busy to see that the girl in the wicker chair was as much of an outsider as he was Plainly this was her first trip in. Cor don was a stranger in the Yukon coun- try. one not likely to be overwelcome when 1t became known what his mis- sion was.
 From where he was leaning against the deckhouse Elliot could see only a fne, chiseled profile shading into a mass of crisp. black hair. but some quality in the detachment of her per sonality stimulated gently his imagina. ton. He wondered who she could be.
 A short. thickset man who had ridden down on the stage with Elliot to Pierre's Portage drifted along the deck toward him. He wore the careless garb of a mining man In a country which looks first to comfort.
 Bound for Kusiak?" he asked. by way of opening conversation.
 Yes" answered Gordon.
 The miner nodded toward the group under the awning. That bunch lives at Kusiak. They've got on at different places the last two or three days except Selfridge and his wife; they've been out. Guess you can tell that from hearing her talk-the little woman in pod urifh tho enc ppy h1, cty avao Cha,z spillin' over with talk about the styles in New York and the cabarets and the new shows. That pot-bellied little fel- low in the checked suit Is Selfridge. He is Colby Macdonald's man Friday"
 Elliot took in with a quickened in- terest the group bound for Kusiak. He had noticed that they monopolized as . matter of course the best places on the deck and in the dining room. They were civil enough to outsiders, but their manner had the unconscious self ishness that often regulates social ac- tivities. It excluded from their gay ety everybody that did not belong to the proper set.
 That sort of thing gets my goat" the miner went on sourly. Those women over there have elected themselves Society with a capital s. They put on all the airs the Four Hundred do in New York. And who are they any howf-wives to a bunch of grating politicians mostly"
 That's the way of the world, isn't itf Our civilization is built on the group system" suggested Elliot.
 Maybe so," grumbled the miner. 'But hate to see Alaska come to it. Me, I saw this country first In ninety seven-packed an outfit In over the pass. Every man stood on his own hind legs then. He got there If he was strong-mebbe; he begged down on the trail good and plenty if he was weak. We didn't have any of the ar- tificial stuff then. A man had to have the guts to stand the gaf."
 T suppose 1t was a wild country, Ir. Strong"
 The little miners eyes gleamed. Best country in the world. We didn't stand for anything that wasn't on the aCvvAs 4s W8D - ROOA AAAo4 wages fifteen dollars . day and plenty Of work. Everybody had . chance. Anybody could stake . claim and gamble on his luck. Now the big cor poeations have slipped in and grabbed ehe best. It ain't prospector's propo- atjoo any more. Instead of faro banks we've got savingz banks. The wide open dance hall has quit business In favor of moving pictures. And, e cid befoee, we've got Society."
 ~An frontier countries have to cone to it."
 ~HmpI In the days I'm telling you about that crowd there couldn't a hustled meat to flll their bellies three meals. Parasites. that's what they are. They're living o6 that bunch of roughnecks down there and folks Hke 'em."