edge of civilization; the north triumphant, and yet paying its
tribute. For at the other end were waiting the royal Upper Ten
Thousand and the smart Four Hundred with all the beau monde behind
them, coveting and demanding that tribute to their sex--the silken
furs of a far country, the life's blood and labor of a land
infinitely beyond the pale of drawing-rooms and the whims of
fashion.

Carrigan had thought of these things that hour ago, as he sat at
the edge of the first of the Three Rivers, the great Athabasca.
From down the other two, the Slave and the Mackenzie, the fur
fleets of the unmapped country had been toiling since the first
breakups of ice. Steadily, week after week, the north had been
emptying itself of its picturesque tide of life and voice, of
muscle and brawn, of laughter and song--and wealth. Through, long
months of deep winter, in ten thousand shacks and tepees and
cabins, the story of this June had been written as fate had
written it each winter for a hundred years or more. A story of the
triumph of the fittest. A story of tears, of happiness here and
there, of hunger and plenty, of new life and quick death; a story
of strong men and strong women, living in the faith of their
forefathers, with the best blood of old England and France still
surviving in their veins.

Through those same months of winter, the great captains of trade
in the city of Edmonton had been preparing for the coming of the
river brigades. The hundred and fifty miles of trail between that
last city outpost of civilization and Athabasca Landing, the door
that opened into the North, were packed hard by team and dog-
sledge and packer bringing up the freight that for another year