' said the newcomer. 'My name is Davidson.'

"'I happen to know you as Gat Gardiner,' insisted the policeman. 'Got
any weapons on you?'

"'Leave go of me,' flared the so-called Davidson, all the veneer of
civility gone. 'You got nothing on me. Let go, I say!'

"'I've got something on you,' declared the policeman, hauling a
revolver from the hip pocket of the man. 'Carrying concealed weapons
is against the law on this side the line. Back on the boat, you, and
don't you dare put foot ashore or I'll have you in jail. You go back
the way you came.'

"And Gardiner went. I saw him leaning over the rail when the boat
started on the return trip and he shook his fist at the policeman on
the wharf and emitted a string of vile oaths. But he never came back.

"When the notorious 'Soapy' Smith was killed at Skagway, Alaska, his
gang of desperadoes was promptly broken up and word came to Dawson that
some of them were headed for the Canadian side. They were gathered in
as soon as they crossed the line, denuded of weapons, and sent back.
Not one of the gang eluded the vigilance of the police.

"The law against carrying concealed weapons was a big factor in keeping
the peace. Comparatively few men took advantage of their legal right
to carry a revolver in sight. I remember seeing an open box in a
pawnshop containing the most amazing collection of weapons I had ever
set eyes on--revolvers with silver handles, pistols of carved ivory,
antiquated breech-loaders, weapons of fantastic design, and, probably,
of equally fantastic history, strange implements of death that had come
from all climes and bespoke adventures on all the seven seas.

"'Where did you get the lot?' I asked the proprietor.

"'They all sell their shooting irons. No use for them here. I get 'em
for practically nothing. Help yourself if you have any fancy that way.
I'll make you a present of anything you want.'

"So much for the wild Yukon of the novelists! Instead of lurching into
the dance hall and blazing away at the ceiling, picture the
'old-timer', the hardened miner of a hundred camps, planking down his
pistols on the counter of the pawnshop and asking 'How much?' That's
the truer picture."

As part of my boyhood education was derived from the study of American
illustrated magazines, I was led by those periodicals to believe that
the North American wilderness was inhabited by wild and woolly men
bedecked with firearms, and ever since I have