fur is inherently the business of the North--and its history is written
in blood--the blood and the suffering of thousands of men and millions of
animals. But the profits are great. Fashion has decreed that My Lady
shall be swathed in fur--therefore, men go mad and die in the barrens,
and the quivering red bodies of small animals bleed, and curl up, and
stiffen upon the hard crust of the snow! No, the North is not gentle,
Miss Elliston----"

"Don't! Don't!" faltered the girl. "It is all too--too horrible--too
sickeningly brutal--too--too unbelievable!" She covered her eyes with
her hand.

Lapierre answered, dryly. "Yes. The North is that way. It has always
been so--and it always will----"

Chloe's hand dropped from her eyes and, she faced him in a sudden burst
of passion. Her sensitive lips quivered and her eyes narrowed to the
rapier-blade eyes that were the eyes of Tiger Elliston. She tore the
roll of blue-prints to bits and ground them into the mould with the heel
of her boot.

"_It will not!_" Her voice cut sharply, and hard. "What do you know of
what the North _will_ be? You know it only as it has been--as it is,
perhaps. But, of its future you know nothing. I tell you the North will
change! It is a hard land--cruel--elemental--raw! But it is _big_!
And, when it awakens, its very bigness, the virile force and strength of
it, will turn against its savagery, its cruelty, its brutishness; and
above all other lands it will stand for the protection of the weak and
for the right of things to live!"