ood and plenty if he was
weak. We didn't have any of the artificial stuff then. A man had to have
the guts to stand the gaff."

"I suppose it was a wild country, Mr. Strong."

The little miner's eyes gleamed. "Best country in the world. We
didn't stand for anything that wasn't on the level. It was a poor
man's country--wages fifteen dollars a day and plenty of work. Everybody
had a chance. Anybody could stake a claim and gamble on his luck. Now
the big corporations have slipped in and grabbed the best. It ain't
a prospector's proposition any more. Instead of faro banks we've got
savings banks. The wide-open dance hall has quit business in favor
of moving pictures. And, as I said before, we've got Society."

"All frontier countries have to come to it."

"Hmp! In the days I'm telling you about that crowd there couldn't 'a'
hustled meat to fill their bellies three meals. Parasites, that's what
they are. They're living off that bunch of roughnecks down there and
folks like 'em."

With a wave of his hand Strong pointed to a group of miners who had
boarded the boat with them at Pierre's Portage. There were about a dozen
of the men, for the most part husky, heavy-set foreigners. They had been
drinking, and were in a sullen humor. Elliot gathered from their talk
that they had lost their jobs because they had tried to organize an
incipient strike in the Frozen Gulch district.

"Roughnecks and booze-fighters--that's all they are. But they earn their
way. Not that I blame Macdonald for firing them, mind you," continued
the miner.

"Were they working for Macdonald?"

"Yep. His superintendent up there was too soft. These here Swedes got
gay. Mac hit the trail for Frozen Gulch. He hammered his big fist
into the bread-basket of the ringleader and said, 'Git!' That fellow's
running yet, I'll bet. Then Mac called the men together and read the
riot act to them. He fired this bunch on the boat and was out of the
camp before you could bat an eye. It was the cleanest hurry-up job I
ever did see."

"From what I've heard about him he must be a remarkable man."

"He's the biggest man in Alaska, bar none."

This was a subject that interested Gordon Elliot very much. Colby
Macdonald and his activities had brought him to the country.

"Do you mean personally--or because he represents the big corporations?"

"Both. His word comes pretty near being law up here, not only because
he stands for the Consolidated, but because he's one ma