Part 1 (1/2)

The Barrier

by Rex Beach

CHAPTER I

THE LAST FRONTIER

Many men were in debt to the trader at Flambeau, and many counted him as a friend The latter never reasoned why, except that he had done them favors, and in the North that counts for much Perhaps they built likewise upon the fact that he was ever the same to all, and that, in days of plenty or in times of famine, his store was open to every man, and all received the same measure Nor did he raise his prices when the boats were late They recalled one bleak and blustery autu with her all their winter's food, how he eked out his scanty stock, dealing to each and every one his portion, month by month They remembered well the bitter winter that follohen the spectre of famine haunted their cabins, and when for endless periods they cinched their belts, and cursed and went hungry to sleep, accepting, day by day, the rations doled out to the store Soold washed from the bars at Forty Mile, and there were others who had wandered in fro, the legs of their skin boots eaten to the ankle, and the taste of dog meat still in their h that desperate winter as their brothers from up-river, and received pound for pound of musty flour, strip for strip of rusty bacon, luar

Moreover, the price of no single thing had risen throughout the famine

Some of them, to this day, owed bills at Old Man Gale's, of which they dared not think; but every fall and every spring they caain and told of their disappoint another outfit, for which he rendered no account, not even when the debts grew year by year, not even to ”No Creek” Lee, the most unlucky of them all, who said that a curse lay on hiot up and moved away and hid itself

There were so, in years past, but these were few, and their finish had been of a nature to discourage a similar practice on the part of others, and of a nature, ood men to care for the trader and for his methods He mixed in no ly He spoke in a level voice, and he shed hiain, as if in search of some visitor whoed he had lived as strong lad to call him friend

This day he stood in the door of his post staring up the sun-lit river, absorbing the warreat bend beneath the high, cut banks and past the little town, disappearing behind the wooded point belohichlabor of their stacks before he saw their s a burden of sand and silt, so that one e to listen; but the slanting sun this afternoon old which issued silently out of a land of etfulness At least so the trader fancied, and found hiht carry away on its boso in its place forgetfulness of all that had gone before Instead, however, it sees ”up-river,” news that every down-co steamboat verified For years he had known that so would happen, that soreat hordes ofwith them that which he feared to meet, that which had made him what he was And now that the ti caused him to turn his head Down-strea-staff made from the trunk of a slender fir, fro on their tackle as they sang in unison They stood well out upon the river's bank before a group of well-made houses, the peeled timbers of which shone yellow in the sun He noted the sys, noted the space about theround, and from which the stumps had been removed; noted that the ure of an officer co them

The lines about the trader's mouth deepened, and his heavy brows contracted

”That means the law,” he murmured, half aloud, while in his voice was no trace of pleasure, nor of that interest which good”The last frontier is gone The trail ends here!”

He stood so, htly by a girl fell pleasantly on his ears, whereupon the shadows vanished froes of his teeth showing beneath hiswith pleasure

The sight was good to hi down the trail was like soht-footed, slender, and dark, with twin braids of hair to her waist fra an oval face colored by the wind and sun She was very beautiful, and a great fever surged up through the old ripped the boards at his side and bit sharply at the pipe between his teeth

”The salmon-berries are ripe,” she announced, ”and the hills back of the village are pink with them I took Constantine's squaith me, and we picked quarts and quarts I ate thehter was like the tinkle of silver bells Her head, thrown back as she laughed gayly, displayed a throat rounded and full and smooth, and tanned to the hue of her wind-beaten cheeks Every , with a hint of Indian freedoarery, yet they were neatly cut and held to the pattern of the whites

”Constantine was drunk again last night, and I had to give hi to e cahtened to death of ry”

She furrowed her brow in a scowl--the daintiest, most ridiculous pucker of a brow that ever ry pout as she recounted her temperance talk till the trader broke in, his voice very soft, his gray-blue eyes as tender as those of a woain, Necia The old sun don't shi+ne as bright when you're away, and when it rains it seerass and the little trees was crying for you I reckon everything weeps when you're gone, girl, everything except your old dad, and sometimes he feels like he'd have to bust out and join the rest of the steps, and the girl settled beside hiainst his knee

”I missed you dreadfully, daddy,” she said ”It seemed as if those days at the Mission would never end Father Barnum and the others were very kind, and I studied hard, but there wasn't any fun in things without you”

”I reckon you know as much as a priest, now, don't you?”

”Oh, lots ravely ”You see, I am a woetting that”

Their faces were set towards the west, where the low sun hung over a ragged range of hills topped with everlasting white The great valley, dark with an untrodden wilderness of birch and spruce and alder, lay on this side, soe for its resting-place, its edges turned up towards the line of unnificent confusion, while still to the farther side lay the purple valley of the Koyukuk, a valley that called insistently to restlesstheer of the North Each year a tithe remained behind, the toll of the trackless places, but the rest went back again and again, and took new brothers with them