ska was still chained like a starving man just outside
the reach of all the milk and honey in a wonderful land. Pauperizing,
degrading, actually killing, the political misrule that had already
driven 25 per cent of Alaska's population from their homes was to
continue indefinitely. A President of the United States had promised to
visit the mighty land of the north and see with his own eyes. But would
he come? There had been other promises, many of them, and promises had
always been futile. But it was a hope that crept through Alaska, and
upon this hope men whose courage never died began to build. Freedom was
on its way, even if slowly. Justice must triumph ultimately, as it
always triumphed. Rusty keys would at last be turned in the locks which
had kept from Alaskans all the riches and resources of their country,
and these men were determined to go on building against odds that they
might be better prepared for that freedom of human endeavor when
it came.

In these days, when the fires of achievement needed to be encouraged,
and not smothered, neither Alan nor Carl Lomen emphasized the menace of
gigantic financial interests like that controlled by John
Graham--interests fighting to do away with the best friend Alaska ever
had, the Biological Survey, and backing with all their power the ruinous
legislation to put Alaska in the control of a group of five men that an
aggrandizement even more deadly than a suffocating policy of
conservation might be more easily accomplished. Instead, they spread the
optimism of men possessed of inextinguishable faith. The blackest days
were gone. Rifts were breaking in the clouds. Intelligence was creeping
through, like rays of sunshine. The end of Alaska's serfdom was near at
hand. So they preached, and knew they were preaching truth, for what
remained of Alaska's men after years of hopelessness and distress were
fighting men. And the women who had remained with them were the mothers
and wives of a new nation in the making.

These mothers and wives Alan met during his week in Nome. He would have
given his life if a few million people in the States could have known
these women. Something would have happened then, and the sisterhood of
half a continent--possessing the power of the ballot--would have opened
their arms to them. Men like John Graham would have gone out of
existence; Alaska would have received her birthright. For these women
were of the kind who greeted the sun each day, and the