CHAPTER I

WHEREIN A SPIRITLESS MAN AND A ROGUE APPEAR




The trail to Kalvik leads down from the northward mountains over the
tundra which flanks the tide flats, then creeps out upon the salt ice of
the river and across to the village. It boasts no travel in summer, but by
winter an occasional toil-worn traveller may be seen issuing forth from
the Great Country beyond, bound for the open water; while once in thirty
days the mail-team whirls out of the forest to the south, pauses one night
to leave word of the world, and then is swallowed up in the silent hills.
Kalvik, to be sure, is not much of a place, being hidden away from the
main-travelled routes to the interior and wholly unknown except to those
interested in the fisheries.

A Greek church, a Russian school with a cassocked priest presiding, and,
about a hundred houses, beside the cannery buildings, make up the village.
At first glance these canneries might convey the impression of a
considerable city, for there are ten plants, in all, scattered along
several miles of the river-bank; but in winter they stand empty and still,
their great roofs drummed upon by the fierce Arctic storms, their high
stacks pointing skyward like long, frozen fingers black with frost. There
are the natives, of course, but they do not count, concealed as they are
in burrows. No one knows their number, not even the priest who gathers
toll from them.