Part 1 (1/2)
The Rim of the Desert.
by Ada Woodruff Anderson.
FOREWORD
The desert of this story is that semi-arid region east of the upper Columbia. It is cut off from the moisture laden winds of the Pacific by the lofty summits of the Cascade Mountains which form its western rim, and for many miles the great river crowds the barrier, winding, breaking in rapids, seeking a way through. To one approaching this rim from the dense forests of the westward slopes, the sage grown levels seem to stretch limitless into the far horizon, but they are broken by hidden coulees; in propitious seasons reclaimed areas have yielded phenominal crops of wheat, and under irrigation the valley of one of the two tributaries from the west, wherein lies Hesperides Vale, has become a garden spot of the world.
To the initiated I wish to say if in the chapters touching on the Alaska coal cases I have followed too literally the statements of prominent men, it was not in an effort to portray them but merely to represent as clearly as possible the Alaska situation.
ADA WOODRUFF ANDERSON.
CHAPTER I
THE MAN WHO NEVER CAME BACK
It is in October, when the trails over the wet tundra harden, and before the ice locks Bering Sea, that the Alaska exodus sets towards Seattle; but there were a few members of the Arctic Circle in town that first evening in September to open the clubhouse on the Lake Boulevard with an informal little supper for special delegate Feversham, who had arrived on the steamer from the north, on his way to Was.h.i.+ngton.
The clubhouse, which was built of great, hewn logs, with gabled eaves, stood in a fringe of firs, and an upper rear balcony afforded a broad outlook of lake and forest, with the glaciered heights of the Cascade Mountains breaking a far horizon. The day had been warm, but a soft breeze, drawing across this veranda through the open door, cooled the a.s.sembly room, and, lifting one of the lighter hangings of Indian-wrought elk leather, found the stairs and raced with a gentle rustle through the lower front entrance back into the night. It had caressed many familiar things on its way, for the walls were embellished with trophies from the big s.p.a.ces where winds are born. There were skins of polar and Kodiak bear; of silver and black fox; there were antlered heads set above the fireplace and on the rough, bark-seamed pillars that supported the unceiled roof. A frieze of pressed and framed Alaska flora finished the low gallery which extended around three sides of the hall, and the ma.s.sive chairs, like the polished banquet board, were of crocus-yellow Alaska cedar.
The delegate, who had come out to tide-water over the Fairbanks-Valdez trail, was describing with considerable heat the rigors of the journey.
The purple parka, which was the regalia of the Circle, seemed to increase his prominence of front and intensified the color in his face to a sort of florid ripeness.
”Yes, gentlemen,” he continued, thumping the table with a stout hand and repeating the gesture slowly, while the gla.s.ses trembled, ”Alaska's crying need is a railroad; a single finished line from the most northern harbor open to navigation the whole year--and that is Prince William Sound-- straight through to the Tanana Valley and the upper Yukon. Already the first problem has been solved; we have pierced the icy barrier of the Coast Range. All we are waiting for is further right of way; the right to the forests, that timber may be secured for construction work; the right to mine coal for immediate use. But, gentlemen, we may grow gray waiting.
What do men four thousand miles away, men who never saw Alaska, care about our needs?” He leaned back in his chair, while his glance moved from face to face and rested, half in challenge, on the member at the foot of the board. ”These commissioners appointed off there in Was.h.i.+ngton,” he added.
”These carpet-baggers from the little States beyond the Mississippi!”
Hollis Tisdale, who had spent some of the hardest years of his Alaska career in the service of the Government, met the delegate's look with a quiet humor in his eyes.
”It seems to me,” he said, and his deep, expressive voice instantly held the attention of every one, ”that such a man, with intelligence and insight, of course, stands the surest chance of giving general satisfaction in the end. He is at least disinterested, while the best of us, no matter how big he is, how clear-visioned, is bound to take his own district specially to heart. Prince William Sound alone has hundreds of miles of coast-line and includes more than one fine harbor with an ambitious seaport.”
At this a smile rippled around the table, and Miles Feversham, who was the attorney for one of the most ambitious syndicates of promoters in the north, gave his attention to the menu. But Tisdale, having spoken, turned his face to the open balcony door. His parka was thrown back, showing an incongruous breadth of stiff white bosom, yet he was the only man present who wore the garment with grace. In that moment the column of throat rising from the purple folds, the upward, listening pose of the fine head, in relief against the bearskin on the wall behind his chair, suggested a Greek medallion. His brown hair, close-cut, waved at the temples; lines were chiseled at the corners of his eyes and, with a lighter touch, about his mouth; yet his face, his whole compact, muscular body, gave an impression of youth--youth and power and the capacity for great endurance.
His friends said the north never had left a mark of its grip on Tisdale.
The life up there that had scarred, crippled, wrecked most of them seemed only to have mellowed him.
”But,” resumed Feversham quickly, ”I shall make a stiff fight at Was.h.i.+ngton; I shall force attention to our suspended land laws; demand the rights the United States allows her western territories; I shall ask for the same concessions that were the making of the Oregon country; and first and last I shall do all I can to loosen the strangling clutch of Conservation.” He paused, while his hand fell still more heavily on the table, and the gla.s.ses jingled anew. ”And, gentlemen, the day of the floating population is practically over; we have our settled communities, our cities; we are ready for a legislative body of our own; the time has come for Home Rule. But the men who make our laws must be familiar with the country, have allied interests. Gentlemen,”--his voice, dropping its aggressive tone, took a honeyed insistence,--”we want in our first executive a man who knows us intimately, who has covered our vast distances, whose vision has broadened; a man big enough to hold the welfare of all Alaska at heart.”
The delegate finished this period with an all-embracing smile and, nodding gently, leaned back again in his chair. But in the brief silence that followed, he experienced a kind of shock. Foster, the best known mining engineer from Prince William Sound to the Tanana, had turned his eyes on Tisdale; and Banks, Lucky Banks, who had made the rich strike in the Iditarod wilderness, also looked that way. Then instantly their thought was telegraphed from face to face. When Feversham allowed his glance to follow the rest, it struck him as a second shock that Tisdale was the only one on whom the significance of the moment was lost.
The interval pa.s.sed. Tisdale stirred, and his glance, coming back from the door, rested on a dish that had been placed before him. ”j.a.panese pheasant!” he exclaimed. The mellowness glowed in his face. He lifted his eyes, and the delegate, meeting that clear, direct gaze, dropped his own to his plate. ”Think of it! Game from the other side of the Pacific. They look all right, but--do you know?”--the lines deepened humorously at the corners of his mouth--”nothing with wings ever seems quite as fine to me as ptarmigan.”
”Ptarmigan!” Feversham suspended his fork in astonishment. ”Not ptarmigan?”
”Yes,” persisted Tisdale gently, ”ptarmigan; and particularly the ones that nest in Nunatak Arm.”
There was a pause, while for the first time his eyes swept the Circle. He still held the attention of every one, but with a difference; the tenseness had given place to a pleased expectancy.
Then Foster said: ”That must have been on some trip you made, while you were doing geological work around St. Elias.”