THE BARRIER




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 autumn when the steamer sank at the Lower Ramparts,
taking 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 followed, when 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 them by the grim,
gray man at the log store. Some of them had money-belts weighted low