It was boasted of Seal Bay that its inhabitants produced more wealth per head than any other community in the Northern world, not even excluding the gold cities of Alaska and the Yukon. It was a considerable boast, but with more than usual justice. A cynic once declared that it was the only distinction of merit the place could fairly claim.

The boast of Seal Bay was sufficiently alluring to those who had not yet set foot on its pestilential shores. For once, by some extraordinary chance, truth had been spoken in Seal Bay. No one need starve upon its deplorable streets, if sufficiently clever and unscrupulous.

A photographic plate would have yielded a choice scene of desolation, if sun enough could have been found to achieve the necessary record. The long, low foreshore of Seal Bay was dotted with a large number of mud huts, thatched with reeds from adjacent marshes, and a fair sprinkling of frame houses of varying shapes and sizes. There were no streets in the modern sense, only stretches of mire which were more or less bottomless for about seven months in the year, and lost in the grip of an Arctic winter for the rest of the time. Foot traffic was only made possible in the softer portion of the year by means of disjointed sections of wooden sidewalks laid down by those who preferred the expense and labour to the necessary discomfort of frequent bathing.

There was no doubt that Seal Bay as a trading port owed its existence to two spits of mud and sand on either side of a completely inhospitable foreshore. They stretched out, forming the two horns of a horseshoe, like puny arms seeking to embrace the wide waters of Hudson's Bay.

Within their embrace was a more or less safe anchorage for light draft craft. There was a pier. At least it was called a pier by the more reckless. It was propped and bolstered in every conceivable way to keep it from sinking out of sight in its muddy bed, and became a source of political discord on the subject of its outrageous cost of maintenance.

As for the setting which Seal Bay claimed it was no more happy than the rest. There was no background until the far-off distance was reached, and then it was only a serrated line of low and apparently barren hills. Everything else was a wide expanse of deplorable morass and reed-grown tundra, through which ran a few safe tracks, which, except in winter, were a deadly nightmare to all travellers.

The handiwork of man is not usually wholly without merit, but Seal Bay would have sent the most hardened real estate agent seeking shelter in a sanatorium as a result of overwork. Still, traffic was possible. Seal Bay was an ideal spot for robbing Indian and half-breed fur traders who knew no better, and the plunder could be more or less safely dispatched to the markets of the world outside. Oh, yes, there was easy money and plenty. So what else mattered?

These were the opinions of those who really counted, such men as Lorson Harris, head of the Seal Bay Trading Corporation, and Alroy Leclerc, who kept a mud shelter of extensive dimensions for the sale of drink and food and gambling. There were others, those who came over the great white trail from the north, who possessed very definite opinions of their own, but were wise enough to refrain from ventilating them within the city limits.

A man who hugged to himself very strong views had just entered the city. He always came when Seal Bay was quite at its best. It may have been simple chance. Anyway, it was one of the coldest days of winter, with a sharp north wind blowing, and the thermometer hard down to zero. Seal Bay's sins lay concealed under a thick garment of snow, while its surrounding terrors were rendered innocuous by the iron grip of frost.

Seal Bay was astir. It always was astir when this man paid his annual visit. He excited a curiosity that never flagged. His coming was looked for. His going was watched. His coming and going were two of the most baffling riddles confronting the sophisticated minds of a people whose pursuits had no relation to purity or honesty.

The man came with three great dog-trains. Sometimes he came with four, and even five. His sleds were heavy laden, packed to the limits of the capacity of his dogs. They, in turn, were more powerful and better conditioned than any Indian train that visited the place, and each was a full train of five savage creatures more than half wolf.

He drove straight through the main thoroughfare of the town. The onlookers were fully aware of his destination. It was the great store-house over which Lorson Harris presided. And this knowledge set much ill-feeling and resentment stirring. It was always the same. The sturdy, hard-faced man from the north ignored Seal Bay as a community, and only recognized a fellow creature in the great man who wove the net which the Seal Bay Trading Corporation spread over the Northern world.

Something of the position found illumination in the dialogue which passed between two men lounging in Alroy's doorway as the great train passed them by.

"Gee! Makes you wonder if us folks has the plague," laughed Kid Restless, the most successful gambler that haunted Alroy's dive. "He don't see a thing but Lorson's. He'd hate to pass a 'how-dy' to a cur. But his trade ain't as big as last year. Guess Lorson'll halve his smile. He's been coming along fourteen year, ain't it?"

Dupont nodded, his contemplative gaze following the procession of sleds under the skilful driving of their attendants.

"Yep." Dupont was a lesser trader who lived in a state of furious discontent at the monopoly of the greater store. "The Brand outfit's been trading here fourteen years—and more."

"How's that?"

"Oh, ther's a heap queer about that outfit," said the envious whiskered man, whose dark, sallow features suggested plainly enough his Jewish origin. "Maybe it's that makes that feller act same as if we had the—plague. He calls himself Brand, but he ain't the Brand who traded here more than twenty years ago. Guess you wasn't around then. Guess I wasn't, neither. I'd be crazy by now if I had been. But the story's right enough. Brand—Marcel Brand—and his pardner traded here with Lorson more than twenty years back. He came from God knows where, an' he just went right back to the same place. Then him an' his pardner got done up. The darn Eskimos, or neches, or ha'f-breeds, shot 'em both up to small chunks. Lorson was nigh crazy for the trade he lost, for all Brand was a free-trader like Lorson hates best. Then, three years or so later, along comes this guy with the name of 'Marcel Brand,' and carried on the trade. And he's a white man same as the other. It was then Lorson took to smiling plenty again."

"You figger he's the feller that?——"

"I don't know. I 'low' got notions though."

Kid Restless was interested. There was little enough to interest him in Seal Bay beyond the life of piracy he carried on at the card tables.

"It's some queer sort o' trade, ain't it?" he asked.

"Queer?" Dupont spat. "Oh, he trades pelts, some o' the best seals ever reach this darnation swamp. But the trade that makes Lorson smile is queer. I've seen bales of it shipped out of this harbour, an' it looks like dried seaweed, an' smells like some serrupy flower you'd hate to have around. Lorson just loves it to death, and I guess it needs to be a good trade that sets him lovin'. But he keeps his face closed. Same as the feller that calls himself Brand. Oh, yes, Lorson's the kind of oyster you couldn't hammer open with a haf ton maul."

"Why don't they trail him—this guy?" demanded Kid sharply.

"Trail? Why, the sharps are after him all the time. But he skins 'em to death. Lorson's at the game, too. Oh, yes. Guess Lorson 'ud jump the claim if he could get wise. But he ain't wise. No one is. But they'll get that way one time, and then that mule-faced guy, who guesses we'll hand him plague, will forget to get around in snow time. You can't beat the Seal Bay 'sharps' all the time, though I allow he's beat 'em plumb to death fourteen years."

"I'd guess it'll need grit to beat him," returned the Kid. "That is," he added thoughtfully, "if you can judge the face of a—mule."

"Oh, he's got grit—in plenty. Even Lorson gets his hat off to him when he's around."

Dupont laughed maliciously.

"You mean——?"

"I was remembering Lorson's play," the trader went on. "He had his 'toughs' that time. Brand had pulled out two weeks and more. Then one day a bunch of Northern neches pulled in. They'd beat down the coast in a big-water canoe. The folks didn't notice them. It's the sort of thing frequent happens. But Lorson got the scare of his life. He woke up next morning with his pet 'tough'—a big breed—lying across his home doorstep. He guessed he was dead. But he wasn't. He woke up about midday and started guessing where he was. Later on he handed out a fancy yarn what the neches had done to him. An', happening to dove a hand into a pocket, he hauled out a letter addressed to Lorson himself. It just said four words, an' Lorson spoke them. I don't guess they'd mean a thing to the likes of him. They just said, 'Play the darn game.' And under them was wrote 'Brand.'"

Kid grinned back into the other's eyes which were alight with malicious delight.

"That's the med'cine to hand a feller that can understand white—not Lorson," the gambler said. "I like that guy that calls himself 'Brand.'"

"Guess he's some boy all right. But—I was thinkin' of that breed. He was doped."

The other nodded.

"You're guessing about that—queer trade," he said.

Dupont gazed out in the direction whence the dog train had disappeared behind the group of great frame buildings which represented the establishment of the Seal Bay Trading Corporation.

"Yep," he said thoughtfully.

Lorson Harris was a type common enough in outland places, where money is easy and conscience does not exist. He was vulgar, he was brutal, he was a sensualist in his desire for all that wealth could buy him. He was not a man of education. Far from it. He was a clever, unscrupulous schemer, a product of conditions—rough conditions.

He was a large, coarse man who had permitted his passions to gain the upper hand in the control of his life, but they by no means interfered with his capacity as the head of the Seal Bay Trading Corporation.

He overflowed a big armchair before his desk in the office of his great store, and beamed a hard-breathing good-nature upon all those who seemed likely to be useful in his multitudinous schemes. Just now the victim of his smile was a man at the zenith of middle life. He was of medium height, but of herculean muscle, and the fact was patent enough even under the dense bulk of fur-lined buckskin clothing he was wearing.

There was no more sympathy in the two men's appearance than there was in their condition of mind. While a passionate desire for the flesh-pots enjoyed by other magnates of commerce, whose good fortune had provided them with a happier hunting-ground than Seal Bay, was the primal motive power of the trader, the man who had just come off the great white trail was driven by a desire no less strong, but only selfish in that the final achievement should be entirely his.

Just now the fur cap was removed from the visitor's head, and a tingeing of grey was apparent in the shock of brown hair he had bared. A few sharp lines scored his forehead and played about his clean-shaven mouth, but the steady, serious eyes, with their strongly marked, even brows were quite devoid of all sign of passing years. They accentuated the impression of tremendous vigour and capacity his personality conveyed.

The smiling eyes of Lorson read all these things. It was his business to read his visitors. He pushed the cigar box across the desk invitingly.

"They're some cigars, boy," he said complacently. "Try one."

The other shook his head.

"Don't use 'em, thanks. Maybe I'll try my pipe."

"Sure. Do. A horn of whisky—imported Scotch?"

The same definite shake of the head followed, but before the visitor could pass a verbal negative the trader laughed.

"Nothing doing?" he said amiably. "Well, maybe you're right. You boys need fit stomachs. Drink's a darn fool play, but—Here's 'how,'" he added, as he gulped down the dash of spirit he had poured out for himself. He smacked his heavy, appreciative lips, and fondly contemplated the label on the bottle. But he was not really reading it.

"Your trade in the dope's growing," he said, his fat fingers fondling the glass bottle neck as though he were loth to release it. "Nearly fifty thousand dollars. That's your credit for a year's trade. It's the biggest in—fourteen years. And it don't begin to touch the demand I got for the darn stuff. I could sell you a hundred thousand dollars' worth, and still ask for more at the same price. You don't get what that means to me," he went on, with a laugh intended to be disarming. "You ain't running a great store that's crazy to hand out dividends. Here's a market gasping. Prices are sky high, an' we can't 'touch.' I tell you it wouldn't lower the price a haf cent if you quadrupled your output. I want to weep. I sure do."

The man in buckskin was filling his pipe from a bag of Indian manufacture.

"Sure," he nodded. "I get that." Then he added very deliberately. "That's why you send your boys out scouting my trail."

Lorson laughed immoderately to hide the effect of the quietly spoken challenge.

"That's business, boy. I buy your stuff—all you can hand me. But if I can jump into your market, why—it's up to me."

"It certainly is up to you." The man lit his pipe and pressed down the tobacco with one of his powerful fingers. "It's up to you more than you know. I once sent back one of your boys. I shan't worry to send back any more. Best save their skins whole, Harris. You'll never jump my market till you can find a feller who can hit a trail such as you never dreamed of. And it's a trail they got to locate first."

The trader leant back in his chair and linked his fat fingers across his wide stomach. His eyes were twinkling as he regarded the visitor from the North. The smile was still in them, but there was a keen speculation in them, too.

"You can't blame me, boy," he said, with perfect amiability. "Hand me all the stuff I'm asking, and your market's as sacred as a woman's virtue. But you don't hand it me, or maybe you can't. Well, it's up to me to supply my needs any way I know. There's nothing crooked in that. If you're reckoning to squeeze my market you can't kick if I try to open it wide. You see, Brand, this stuff grows. I guess it grows in plenty, because you admit you trade it, and I know the Northern neche well enough to guess he only trades sufficient for his needs. See? Well, I've the same right you have to get on to that source. If you know it, hand me what I'm asking for. If you don't, then you can't stop me trying to locate it for myself. If all business propositions were as straight as that there'd be no kick coming to anyone. As it is, the man who's got a kick is me—not you."

"I get all that," the visitor said, without relaxing his attention. "There's no kick on the moral side of this thing. I never said there was. I said save your boys' skins whole. That's all. If you fancy jumping my claim, jump it, but I guess I don't need to tell you what to expect. You sit around here and order other folks to the job. It's they who're going to suffer. Not you."

"I pay them. They take it on with their darn eyes open," snapped the trader, his amiability slipping from him in a moment.

The other gathered a half smile at the display. He blew a great cloud of smoke, and removed his pipe.

"I'd best tell you something I haven't seen necessary to tell you before," he said. "And it's because I'm not yearning for any feller to get hurt in this thing. And, further, I'm telling you because you'll see the horse sense in cutting out sharp business for real business. There's a big source of this stuff. Oh, yes. I know that. I've been chasing it for fourteen years, and—I haven't found it. When I do—if I do, I'll hand you all you need, and save that weep you threatened. Meanwhile you're sinking dollars in a play that maybe fits your notion of business, but is going to snuff out uselessly the lights of some of your boys, who I agree 'ud be better off the earth. Here's where the horse sense comes in. I know all about this stuff, all there is to know. I know the folks, all of them, who can supply me. They wouldn't trade with your folks. They wouldn't trade with a soul but me. This is simple fact, and no sort of bluff. But the whole point is that I—I wish an outfit ready to face anything the North can hand me, with the confidence of the folks who know the source, have been chasing for it fourteen years and failed, while you, with a bunch of toughs who couldn't live five minutes on one of my winter trails, are guessing to do something that for fourteen years has beaten me. That's the horse sense I want to hand you, and I'm only handing it you so you don't pitchfork any more lives into the trouble that's waiting on them. They won't find it. I'll see to that, and what I don't see to the Northern trail will. If you don't see the sense of this, it's up to you, and anyway, as I'm needing to pull out early, I'll take a draft on the bank for those dollars. I'll be along down again this time next year."

He rose from his chair preparatory to departure, and picked up the warm seal cap he had flung aside.

For a moment the trader sat lost in thought. Then, quite suddenly, he stirred, and reached the check book lying on the desk. He wrote rapidly, and finally tore the draft from its counterfoil and blotted it. Then he looked up, and his smiling amiability was uppermost once more.

"Thanks, Brand," he said. "I'm not sure you aren't right. It's hoss sense anyway. You aren't given to talk most times. I wanted to know how you stood about that stuff. I'm glad you told me. What's more, I guess it's true. Still, what I figger to do in the future don't concern anyone but me. All I can say is I built this enterprise up on a definite hard rule. I never compromise with a rival trading concern, particularly with a free-trading outfit. I trade with 'em, but I'm out to beat 'em all the time."

The other accepted the draft and signed a receipt. Then he thrust his cap over his head and his steady eyes smiled down into the amiable face smiling up at him.

"That's all right, Harris," he said easily. "The feller who don't know wins a pot now and again. But it's the feller who knows wins in the long run. You back the game if you feel that way. You won't hand me a nightmare. Later you'll wake up and get a fresh dream. The game's lost before you start. So long."

Alroy Leclerc beamed on the man who was perhaps the greatest curiosity amongst the many to be found in Seal Bay. His "hotel" had sheltered the trader, who called himself Brand, for three days. A fact sufficiently unusual to stir the saloon-keeper to a high pitch of cordiality. For all his most liberal sources of revenue came from the scallywags of the town, Alroy, with sound instinct, infinitely preferred the custom of the stable men of the Northern world. Brand was more than desirable.

It was early morning. Much too early for Alroy. He felt lonely in the emptiness of the place. A grey daylight, peering in through the window of the office, scarcely lit the remote corners of the room. Brand had breakfasted by lamplight. The saloon-keeper was more than thankful for the comforting warmth of the great wood stove they were standing over.

"Guess it looks like bein' our last real cold snap," Alroy said, by way of making talk with a man who was always difficult. "We'll be running into May in a week. 'Tain't as easy with your folks. We git the warm wind of this darn old bay, with all that means, which," he added with a laugh, "is mostly rain. You'll be runnin' into cold right up to July."

The man from the trail was unrolling a bundle of notes for the settlement of the bill Alroy had presented. He glanced up with a smiling amusement in his eyes.

"Guess that's as may be," he said indifferently. "We get fancy patterns where I come from."

He passed the account and a number of bills to the other, and returned his roll to his pocket.

"And wher' may that be?" enquired the saloon-keeper, with as much indifference as his curiosity would permit.

"Just north," returned the other. "Guess you'll find that right. Twenty-five fifty. I'll take a receipt."

Alroy turned hastily to the table supporting the hotel register, and, producing an ornate fountain pen, forthwith prepared to scratch a receipt, which was rarely enough demanded by his customers amongst the trail men.

"Sure," Brand went on, while the other bent over his unaccustomed work. "We get all sorts. You can't figger anything this time of year, except it'll be a hell of a sight more cussed than when winter's shut down tight. I once knew a red hot chinook that turned the whole darn country into a swamp in April, and never let it freeze up again. I once broke trail at Fort Duggan at the start of May on open water with the skitters running, like midsummer."

Alroy looked up.

"Duggan?" he questioned sharply. "That's the place Lorson opened up last spring. It's right on the edge of a territory they call Unaga, ain't it? The boys were full of it last summer and were guessing what sort of murder lay behind his play."

Brand took the receipt the other handed him and folded it. He thrust it into a pocket inside his fur-lined tunic.

"Why?" he demanded, in the curt fashion that seemed so natural to him.

"Why?" Alroy laughed. "Well, the boys around here guess they know Lorson Harris, and ain't impressed with his virtues. You see, Fort Duggan, they reckon, is a bum sort of location, eaten up by bugs an' a poor sort of neche race. There's an old fort there, ain't there? One o' them places where a hundred an' more years ago the old fur-traders stole, and looted, and murdered the darn neches, and mostly drank themselves to death when they didn't do it by shootin'. That don't figure a heap in the boys' reckonin'. What does, is the feller Lorson sent there. The yarn goes that this feller Nicol—David Nicol—that's his name, I reckon, has been working for the Seal Bay Trading for some years. He seems to be some crook, and Harris found him out. Guess he seems to have cost the Seal Bay outfit a big bunch of money. They were all for sending him down for penitentiary. Then a sort of miracle happened. Lorson begged off. Why? It ain't usually Lorson's way. Next thing happens is Lorson opens up Fort Duggan, and puts the tough in. So the boys are guessin'. There sure is some sort of murder behind it. Lorson don't miss things. His chances are mostly a cinch."

"Yes, he's pretty wise." The thoughtful eyes of the trail man were turned on the sides of the glowing stove so that the saloon-keeper had no chance of observing them. "You can't guess the things behind Lorson's smile," he went on. "But I reckon you can figger there's always something. As far as I can recollect of Fort Duggan—and I haven't been there these years—I'd say he's no mean judge. I always wondered when a big corporation would come along and open it up. There's big trade there in pelts. Still, it's a tough sort of place."

"From what I hear it can't be too tough for the feller Lorson's sent there. There'll be blood and murder amongst the neches there if they don't hand over easy."

Alroy laughed immoderately at the prospect he contemplated, and held out his hand in friendly farewell as his customer prepared to depart.

"Well, so long, Mister," he grinned amiably. "I guess there's things worse in the world than the shelter of this old shanty. Anyway I'd sooner you hit the Northern trail than me. I'll be mighty pleased to see you around come—next year."

"So long."

Alroy's cordiality found very little that was responsive in the other. Perhaps the trail man understood its exact value. Perhaps he was simply indifferent. The saloon-keeper served a purpose, and was amply paid for his service. Anyway he shook hands, and departed without any other response.

Alroy watched him go. There was nothing else to do at this early hour with his entire establishment still abed, and Seal Bay's main thoroughfare still a desert of dirty, rutted snow, some foot or more deep. He stood in his doorway gazing out at the cheerless grey of early morning, watching with interest the handling of the three great dog trains which he had seen come into town with their laden sleds only three days before.

For all the cold and the early morning drear, for all he was of the life of the desolate shores of Seal Bay, for all the comings and goings of the men of the trails, for whom he mostly entertained a more or less profound contempt, for Alroy Leclerc there was still a fascination attached to the mysterious beyond to which these people belonged. Somewhere out there was a great white world whose secrets he could only guess at. The life was a life he did not envy. He knew it by the thousand and one stories of disaster and miraculous escape he had listened to, but that was all. There was more in it, he knew. Much more. It held fascinated the adventurous, untamed spirits of men whose superhuman efforts, yielding them little better than a pittance, still made possible the enormous profits of a parasitic world which battened upon them, and sucked them dry. Oh, yes. Whatever his sympathies he had a pretty wide understanding of the lives of these men. He also knew that he was one of the parasites which battened upon them. But he had no scruples. Nor had he envy. Only a sort of fascination which never failed at the sight of a sled, and a powerful train of well-handled dogs.

It was that which he looked upon now. He watched the two Indians stir the savage creatures from their crouching upon the snow. It was the harsh law of the club administered by skilled but merciless hands. The great, grey beasts, fully half wolf, understood nothing more gentle.

In moments only the whole of the three trains were alert and ready on their feet straining against the rawhide breast draws of their harness. Then the white man shouted the word to "mush." The long hardwood poles of the men broke out the sleds from the frozen grip of snow, and the whole of the lightened outfit dashed off at a rapid, almost headlong gait.

For a few moments Alroy remained at his post gazing after them. Then of a sudden his attention was drawn in an opposite direction.

It was an incoming train. A single sled, heavily laden, but with only a team of three dogs, far inferior to those which had just passed out of the town. They cut into the main thoroughfare out of a side turning and headed at once for the store of the Seal Bay Trading Company.

He looked for the owner. The owner was always his chief interest. He anticipated that a liberal share of the value of the man's cargo would find its way across his counter, and the extent of his profit would depend on the man's identity.

He was destined to receive the surprise of his life. He looked for an Indian, a half-breed, or a white man. Some well-known man of the trail. But it was none of these. Despite the fur-lined tunic almost to the knees, despite the tough, warm nether garments, and the felt leggings, and beaded moccasins, and the well-strung snow-shoes, there remained no doubt in his startled mind. None whatsoever. It was a woman! A girl!

Alroy ran a hand across his astonished eyes. He pushed back his fur cap and stared. The girl was moving down the trail towards him. He had a full view of the face looking out of the fur hood which surrounded it. A white girl, with the heightened colour and brightening eyes of youth and perfect health and strength. She was tall, beautifully tall, and as she swept on past him in her gliding snow-shoes he had a fleeting vision of a strand of fair hair escaped from beneath her fur hood, and a pair of beautiful blue eyes, and pretty, parted lips which left him hugging himself.

The vision had rewarded him for his early rising.