heart-breaking futility of his pursuit. "I tried my best," he added. "I
guess you all know that, but--I was too late."

The warning blast of an automobile cut the stillness, and the machine
stopped in front of the clubhouse, but no one at the table noticed the
interruption.

Then Banks said, in his high key: "But you hitched his dogs up with yours,
the ones that were fit, and brought him through to Seward. You saw him
buried. Thank you for that."

Feversham cleared his throat and reached for the decanter, "Think of it!"
he exclaimed. "A man like that, lost on a main traveled thoroughfare! But
the toll will go on every year until we have a railroad. Here's to that
road, gentlemen. Here's to the Alaska Midway and Home Rule."

The toast was responded to, and it was followed by others. But Tisdale had
left his place to step through the open door to the balcony. Presently
Foster joined him. They stood for an interval smoking and taking in those
small night sounds for which long intimacy with Nature teaches a man to
listen; the distant voice of running water; the teasing note of the
breeze; the complaint of a balsam-laden bough; the restless stir of unseen
wings; the patter of diminutive feet. A wooded point that formed the horn
of a bay was etched in black on the silver lake; then suddenly the moon
illumined the horizon and, rising over a stencilled crest of the Cascades,
stretched her golden path to the shore below them. Both these men,
watching it, saw that other trail reaching white, limitless, hard as steel
through the Alaska solitudes.

"At Seward," said Foster at last, "you received orders by cable detailing