Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1924-06-02
CHAPTER 1
The Remittance Man

L uG IuGd Cdile W Dig CilLloS do
he stood on the beach gazing out
through the narrow, darkened harb-
or mouth into the night and the
storm, that this world of his was an
outcast world, land that God had
cursed and forsaken, a pariah Land
outlawed from the kindly, sun-kiss-
ed world where the races moved
and teemed. Because it was his
home, because its grim, strange
spirit Of desolation and death he'd
long ago got hold of him, it was as
if he were a pariah, too, God-cursed
and God-forsaken, scarcely less SO
than the Remittance Man, with
whom he had just become acquaint-
ed and who now lay in a drunken
stupor in one Of the tumble-down
shacks in the native village behind
him.
Such ideas did not haunt hin.
often. He was huge and blond and
rugged-not dreamer in any
sense except as all men of the north
ern races, knowing life to it's cruel
depths, are given to dreams-and
his last name was Larson. His job,
that of a web foreman in connec-
ton with the fishing that was the
one industry in these far, forsakea
waters, kept him too busy for such
moods as this. But the North was
showing its teeth tonight. Besides
he was inwardly i'll at east from
purely material considerations-he
had caught the cannery lunch Juipi-
Ger at Nushagak, with the idea Of
connecting up with the mail boat at
Squaw Harbor the Juipter's home
port, in race to the outside" bus
the swift-breaking storm had
forced the launch into miniature
cove far up in one of the most desc
late and stormy stretches Of sea
coast in the entire North, there to
remain for an uncertain time.
Of course it was only squall IN
the tradition of seafarers. Captain
jim Of the Jupiter-on the way
home from a scouting trip for a
new trap site-had driven his
staunch little ship through seas
twice as high. But Captain Jim did
not care to take chance when a
mere passengers haste was the only
consideration. Shiels, at Being
ham, and Bradford at Squaw Harb-
CT had given definite instructions
against that very thing, needless
risk Of the lives Of his crew. Yet,
Chris had to admit chat this was no
night for landlubbers.
In all his travels he had never
known a landsquite like this mar
row, treeless, storm-blasted PENN
sula that was the fence between the
Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea
Perhaps that was why he hated 1t,
and by a grotesque paradox that
no mind such as his could ever cy-
plain, loved it, TOO. The hill behird
him sheltered him from the lash Of
She wind, yet he felt that odd dry
ness in his head that always marks
zero weather, and the icy touch Of
the frost, as Of a hand, crept under
his heavy shirt. He wished he had
his heavy sea-coat that he had left
in cabin in the village. Thence
his thought turned to the Remit
lance Man, wondering how he was
making out. 1t is not wise, on che
Peninsula, to soak oneself in dis
tilled sour dough and then lie IN
the cold. This was November: he
made bet with himself that the
Remittance Man-granting that he
sustained the drinking pace he had
set and which, because it. surpassed
all records in this matchmaking
land, was already famous clear to
Nushagak-would not participate
in the Russian festival with which
all far-western Alaska celebrates
the Christmas season.
AS Chris watched, The storm
seemed to increase; the beat Of the