The Rim of the Desert

center, commanded the harbor, caught like a faceted jewel between Duwamish Head and Magnolia Bluff, and a far sweep of the outer Sound set in wooded islands and th

hoosing a sheltered place near the north window, which was closed. A shaded electric lamp cast a ring of light on the package he had laid on the table between them, but the rest of the room was in shadow, and f

n a week," he said, "and

a hotel clerk; since I

ht the package back. You

sen

r; I can find another wh

nk

m the street; his voice rang a litt

oking out on the harbor lights and the stars, then said: "So y

has bonded Banks' claims and, if it is feasible, a dredger will be sent in next spring to begin operations on a big scale. I shall

taking considerable risk in sending you to the Iditarod at this time. Suppose those coal cas

? They were entered regularly, fifty coal claims of one hundred and sixty acres each, by as many different persons. Because the President temporarily su

" Then, "Foster, Foster," he admonished, "be careful. Keep your head. Th

t he can't touch it; it's all tied up in red tape; the road is rotting away. He is getting to be an old man, but I saw him doing day labor on the Seattle streets to-day. Then there's the Copper River Northwestern. That company built a railroad where every engineer but one, who saw the conditions, said it could not be done. You yourself have called it the most wonderful piece of construction on record. You know how that big bridge was built in winter-the only time when the bergs stopped chipping off the face of the glacier long enough to set the piers; you know how Haney worked his men, racing against the spring thaw-he's paying for it with hi

," said Tisdale mellowl

ganstein interests h

restlessly and strode across the room. "The Government wi

who do not expect to do even first assessment work, but only to stay on the ground long enough to stake as many claims as possible for themselves and their friends. When the real prospector arrives, with his year's outfit, he finds hundreds of miles, a whole valley staked, and his one chance is to buy or work under a le

y, "there is going to be a chance, a

that at once, in the quickest concerted way. And, first of all, our special delegates should push the necessity of a law giving a defined length o

n on the city lights. Presently he said: "I presume yo

rict should be of special importance to him just now. The need of a naval coaling station on the Pacific coast has grown i

ked again to the end of the room and return

r the Cascades into the sage-brush count

Foster quickly, "to take

therbee'

to the Aurora, and that, with supplies for a winter camp, has taken a good deal of ready money. Freighting runs high

d Foster dryly, "you'll get you

be eager to dispose of the tract; the only reason it is still

the situation, and I can't ask her directly, but I am sure she has come to the limit. I've been trying all day, ever since I knew I must go north again, to raise en

ter!" he cried and stretched out

ow you would take it," he broke out at last, "but it's the truth. I've smothered it, kept it down for years; but it's nothing to be ashamed of any longer. I'd have been glad to exchange pl

elaxed; he stepped back, and his voice vibrated softly through the room. "How could you have said it, knowing David Weatherbee

and glorify. You don't understand it, Hollis; you don't know her, and I can't explain;

pped forward a little and he stood regarding Fos

en gently bred. Generations of the best blood is bottled like old wine in her crystal body." H

ced back through a Spanish mother to some buccaneering adventurer, Don Silva de y somebody, who m

r, his herds and flocks covered immense ranges. Hundreds of these cattle must have supplied the United States commissary; the rest were scattered, and in the end there

t we call such sons remittance men. They are paid gener

ears. Then he was persuaded to put his money in an old, low-grade gold mine. The company made improvements, built a flume thirty miles long to bring water to the property for de

nheritance, the old rancheria, was sunk with his own in the gold mine. Then he b

be a habit and, after the death of his wife, a passion. His figure was well known on the street; he was called a plunge

, then went on, still regarding Foster with that upward look from under his forbidding brows. "It fell to Weatherbee to break

uld return; married, he might send for her when conditions were fit. And her father's affairs were a complete wreck; even t

said. "I know all about it. Wait. Listen. I am going over the mountains and look up that land of Weatherbee's, and I shall probably buy it, but I want you to unde

ment against this woman. Who was she, he asked himself, that she should fix her hold on level-headed Foster? But he knew her kind. Feversham had called her a "typical American beauty," but there were many types, and he knew her kind. She was a brunette, of course, showing a sw

howing plainly the contour of the tract in eastern Washington and his method of reclamation. The land included a deep pocket set between spurs of the Cascade Mountains. The ridges and peaks above it had an altitude of from one to six thousand feet. He found the spring, marked high in a depressed shoulder, and followed the line of flume drawn from it down to a natural dry basin at the top of the pocket. A dam was set in the lower rim of this reservoir and, reaching from it, a canal was sketched in, fee

passed together in the Alaska solitudes. He had watched the drawing and the project grow. But afterwards, when he had taken up geological work again, they had met only at long intervals; at times he had lost all trace of Weatherbee, and he had not realized the scheme had such a hold. Still, he

ng that white trail through the solitudes stretching limitless under the cold Arctic night. His face hardened. When

ddenly to bring Weatherbee close. He felt his splendid personality there beside him, as he used to feel it still nights up under the near Yukon stars. It was as though he was back to one night, the last on a long trail, when they were about to part company. He had been urging him to come out with him to the States, but Weatherbee had as steadily refused. "Not yet," he persisted. "Not until I have something to show." And again: "No, Hollis, don't ask me

on clouded out the face he tried to recall. "Still Weatherbee was so sensitive, so fine," he argued with himself. "A woman must have pos

is the use?" he exclaimed, and thrusting the watch back into the bag, quickly tied the string. "I don't want to see you. I