over that last mountainous stretch. The Stikine was swift and
forbidding, but navigable. Thus at last, in the first days of the salmon
run, they came out upon tidewater, down to Wrangel by the sea.

There was in Thompson's mind no more thought of burned bridges, no
heartache and empty longing, only an eagerness of anticipation. He had
come a long way, in a double sense. He had learned something of the
essential satisfaction of striving. A tough trail had served to toughen
the mental and moral as well as the physical fiber of him. He did not
know what lay ahead, but whatever did so lie would never dismay him
again as things had done in the past, in that too-recent vivid past.

He was quite sure of this. His mood was tinctured with recklessness when
he summed it up in words. A man must stand on his own feet!

He would never forget that sentence. It was burned into his memory. He
was beginning to understand what Sophie Carr meant by it. Looking
backward he could see that he never had stood on his own feet like a
man. Always he had required props. And they had been forthcoming from
the time the prim spinster aunts took his training in hand until he came
to Lone Moose self-consciously, rather flauntingly, waving the banner of
righteousness. Thompson could smile wryly at himself now. He could see
the unreckonable element of chance functioning largely in a man's life.

And in the meantime he went about Wrangel looking for a job!

CHAPTER XIV

THE RESTLESS FOOT

Being in a town that was at once a frontier camp and a minor seaport,
and being there at a season when the major industry of salmon-packing
was at its height, the search of Tommy Ashe and Thompson for a job was
soon ended. They were taken on as cannery hands--a "hand" being the term
for unskilled laborers as distinguished from fishermen, can machine
experts, engineers and the like. As such they were put to all sorts of
tasks, work that usually found them at the day's end weary, dirty with
fish scales and gurry, and more than a little disgusted. But they were
getting three dollars and a half a day, and it was practically clear,
which furnished a strong incentive to stick it out as long as the season
lasted--a matter of two more months.

"By that time," said Tommy Ashe, "we'll have enough coin to venture into
fresh fields. My word, but we do earn this money. It's the nastiness I
object to, not the work. I shan't forget this first hundred dollars I've
ear