ng if
he lived another year or two--going to find his fortune or his end in
the Stanovoi Mountains and among the Chukchi tribes. Twice he had tried
it since his old comrade had died, and twice he had been driven out. The
next time he would know how to go about it, and he invited Alan to
go with him.

There was a thrill in this talk of a land so near, scarcely a night ride
across the neck of Bering Sea, and yet as proscribed as the sacred
plains of Tibet. It stirred old desires in Alan's blood, for he knew
that of all frontiers the Siberian would be the last and the greatest,
and that not only men, but nations, would play their part in the
breaking of it. He saw the red gleam of firelight in Olaf's eyes.

"And if we don't go in first from _this side_, Alan, the yellow fellows
will come out some day from _that,"_ rumbled the old sour-dough,
striking his pipe in the hollow of his hand. "And when they do, they
won't come over to us in ones an' twos an' threes, but in millions.
That's what the yellow fellows will do when they once get started, an'
it's up to a few Alaska Jacks an' Tough-Nut Bills to get their feet
planted first on the other side. Will you go?"

Alan shook his head. "Some day--but not now." The old flash was in his
eyes and he was seeing the fight ahead of him again--the fight to do his
bit in striking the shackles of misgovernment from Alaska and rousing
the world to an understanding of the menace which hung over her like a
smoldering cloud. "But you're right about the danger," he said. "It
won't come from Japan to California. It will pour like a flood through
Siberia and jump to Alaska in a night. It isn't the danger of the yellow
man alone, Olaf. You've got to combine that with Bolshevism, the menace
of blackest Russia. A disease which, if it crosses the little neck of
water and gets hold of Alaska, will shake the American continent to
bed-rock. It may be a generation from now, maybe a century, but it's
coming sure as God makes light--if we let Alaska go down and out. And my
way of preventing it is different from yours."

He stared into the fire, watching the embers flare up and die. "I'm not
proud of the States," he went on, as if speaking to something which he
saw in the flames. "I can't be, after the ruin their unintelligent
propaganda and legislation have brought upon Alaska. But they're our
salvation and conditions are improving. I concede we have factions in
Alaska and we are not at all unanimous