letter I got tremendously busy hunting up old records, and, after nearly

a day’s work I came to the conclusion that I’d opened up one of the worst stories, and one of the most important, that I’d found in years. I found story after story of these Euralians. They mostly came from Fort Cupar at Fox Bluff, but they also came from simple, uneducated trappers, and from whitemen who adventured northward of here after gold. They came from all sorts of folk, and one and all corroborated all that that letter contains besides presenting many lurid pictures of the doings of these toughs which that letter only hints at.”

He removed several sheets of discoloured foolscap from the file. They were pinned together.

“I’ve selected this report which is dated fifteen years ago. It comes from a man named Jim McLeod, and he was factor for the Fur Valley Corporation at Fort Cupar at that time. It’s one of several reports he sent down from time to time pointing the conditions of his district, and giving pretty red-hot accounts of the terror which these Euralians had created there. But I’m not going to worry you with all that stuff. I’ll simply tell you that the terror of these folk was very real. That these marauders were undoubtedly at that time a large well-organised outfit who had completely succeeded in cleaning up the furs of that region and were passing them over the Alaskan border into foreign hands.

“This is a long report and I’m not going to read it to you. I’m just going to hand it you in my own words. It’s a bad story, but it’s full of an interest that’ll appeal to you. Fifteen years ago there was a swell sort of missionary feller up at Fox Bluff, a great friend of the man who wrote this report. His name was Marty Le Gros. He wasn’t a real churchman, but just a good sort of boy who was yearning to hand help to the Eskimo and Indians. I gather, at the time this story occurred, he was a widower with a baby girl of about four years. He also had an Indian called Usak, and his squaw, working for him about his house. The squaw was kind of foster-mother to the kid. Well, this report tells how in chasing over the country visiting his Missions this Le Gros happened on a most amazing gold ‘strike.’ It doesn’t say how or just where. But it says that the missionary showed this factor man two chunks of pure gold, and a bunch of dust that well nigh paralysed him. Le Gros being a simple sort of feller didn’t worry to keep his news to himself, but blurted his story broadcast, and I gather the only thing he didn’t tell about it was the actual whereabouts of the ‘strike.’ Apparently he let it be understood that Loon Creek was the locality without giving any exact particulars. This man gives such a brief sketch of this gold business I sort of feel he wasn’t anxious to say too much. The reason’s a bit obvious. And anyway I haven’t ever heard of a rush in that direction. So the news never got around down here. But it seems to have got to the ears of these Euralian poachers and set them crazy to jump in on him with both feet.

“Now this is what happened,” Raymes went on, after a brief reflective pause, while Bill sat still, absorbed in the interest which the magic of a gold discovery had for him. His cigar had gone out. “Up to that time the Euralians and their doings were well enough known to these people, but only by hearsay. These ruffians had never operated as far south-east as Fox Bluff and Fort Cupar. Well, the missionary was out on the trail on a visit to some of his Missions with his man, Usak. He arrived at one of them on the Hekor. It was a settlement of fishing Indians. The whole camp was burned out, and the old men, and women, and infants had been butchered to death. Further, from their complete absence, it is supposed the young men and women had been carried off into captivity for slavery and harlotry. There was no doubt of its being the work of these Euralians. The whole thing was characteristic of every known story of them. Le Gros returned home in a panic.

“He came to McLeod and told him the story of it, and together they realised that it was merely prelude to something further. They got it into their heads that it was the Euralian method of embarking on a campaign to get the secret of Le Gros’ gold discovery. You see? Terror. They meant to terrorize Le Gros, and I gather they succeeded. But he meant to fight. You see, he reckoned this ‘strike’ was for his child. He wanted it for her. Well, these two made it up between them to outwit these folk. The missionary crossed the river to his home to prepare a map of his discovery which he was to place in McLeod’s hands for the benefit of his child and McLeod, in half shares, should anything happen to him, Le Gros. Something did happen. It happened the same night. Apparently before the map could be drawn. Sure enough the Euralians descended on the missionary’s house. They killed Le Gros, and they killed the squaw foster-mother. The Indian, Usak, was away from home and so escaped. The child was left alive, flung into an adjacent bluff, and the whole place was burned to the ground. That’s the story in brief. I daresay there’s a heap more to it, but it’s not in that report, and it’s not in subsequent reports, or in other records of my predecessor.

“It would seem that this boy, McLeod, died about eight years after all this happened and was succeeded by another factor for his company. In the meantime my predecessor had sent a patrol up to investigate. The only result of this investigation was a complete corroboration of McLeod’s report, with practically nothing added to it beyond an urgent report on the necessity for definite international action on the subject of these Euralians who came in from Alaska. After that the thing seems to have passed out of my predecessor’s hands. It seems it was taken up by Ottawa with the usual result—pigeon-holed. Does it get you? There it is, a great gold discovery, somewhere up there on the Hekor, I suppose, and the mystery of this people filching our trade through a process of outrageous crime. Somewhere up there there’s a girl-child, white—she’d be about nineteen or twenty now—lost to the white world to which she belongs. But above all, from my point of view, there’s a problem. Who are these Euralians, and what becomes of the wealth of furs they steal? Remember they were at one time at least an _organised_ outfit.” The policeman replaced the file on his desk and returned the report to its place. And the pre-occupation he displayed was a plain index of the depth of interest he had in the problem which had presented itself to his searching mind. Bill Wilder struck a match and re-lit his cigar. “That’s a story of the country I know and love,” he said quietly. “It’s a story of the real Northland. Not the story of one of these muck-holes which are like boils in the face of civilization. I guess you haven’t passed me the whole thing you’ve got in your mind, George.”

“No.”

The policeman swung round in his chair and faced the clear gazing grey eyes of the man whose enormous wealth had still left him the youthful enthusiasm for the battle of the strong which had first driven him to the outlands of the North.

“Will you pass me the—rest?”

Bill smiled.

“Sure I will, if you’ve nothing to ask, nothing to comment on that story.”

“It’ll keep. Maybe I’ll have a whole big heap to talk when you’re through with your—proposition.”

Raymes nodded. He, too, was smiling. He spread out his hands.

“You want to quit. You want to sell out and pass on where you can make some use of the life that’s creaking with rust in every joint. Well, it’s easy. Don’t quit. Don’t sell out. Take a trip north where there’s a big ‘strike’ waiting on a feller with a nose for gold. Where there’s a mighty big mystery to be cleaned up, and the hard justice of this iron country to be handed out to a crowd of devils who’ve battened on its wealth and are sucking the life out of its vitals. Is it good enough? You’ll be able to forget the dollars you’re forced to count daily in this city. You’ll lose sight of the Feldman crowd and the brothels they set going to hand them a stake. It’s the open, where God’s pure air’s blowing. Where there’s room for you to move, and breathe, and live, and where you can hit mighty hard when the mood takes you, and you can feel good all over that you’re doing something for the country you like best. This thing’s my job, but I haven’t the troops or time to fix it the way I should. I’m so crowded to the square inch I don’t know how to breathe right. I haven’t any sort of right offering you this thing. I know that, and I guess you’re wise it’s so. But it don’t matter. I do offer it to you, Bill, and it’s because I know you. I offer it you because you’re the feller to put it through, and because you’re a feller we can’t afford to lose out of our territory. Well?”

The police officer’s manner had become seriously earnest, and the other remained silent for some moments buried in deep thought. George Raymes waited. He watched for the passing of the gold man’s deep consideration. He understood that the thing he required of him was no light task and looked like involving a tremendous sacrifice.

At last Bill’s cigar stump was flung into the cuspidor, and the policeman realised that a decision had been arrived at. The gold man looked up, and a whimsical smile lit his clear eyes.

“If I was crazy enough to take a holt on this thing I don’t just see—I’ve no authority. I’m no policeman. I’m just a bum civilian without police training. You boys are red-hot on the trail of crime. It’s your job, and I guess there’s no folk in the world better at it. But—”

“You’ve forgotten,” Raymes broke in. “There’s the trail of a gold ‘strike’ in this. And Bill Wilder’s got the whole country beaten a mile on a trail of that nature. Make that ‘strike’ an’ I guess you’ll locate the rest in the process. I’m asking for that from you.”

Wilder laughed. It was the clear, ringing laugh of the youth he really was. It was a laugh of appreciation at the simple tactics of his friend. It was a laugh of rising enthusiasm.

“But the authority,” he protested.

Raymes took him up on the instant.

“I have power to enrol ‘specials.’”

The other’s grey eyes lit. Again his laugh rang out. “Yes. I forgot. Of course you can enrol ‘specials.’” Suddenly he sprang from the depths of the rocker, and left it violently disturbed. He stood erect, bulking largely, and a flush of excitement dyed his weather-stained cheeks. “Of course you can,” he cried. “Yes. I’ll get after it. A gold trail! A bunch of toughs! A girl—a white girl! Ye Gods! I’m after it. You can swear me in on any old thing from a Bible to a harvester. That’s all I need. I’ll find my own outfit, and I’ll get busy right away and collect up my old partner Chilcoot Massy. I’ll get right off now down to my office and start fixing things, and I’ll be back again after supper to-night. But I warn you you’ll need to answer a hundred mighty tiresome questions, and pass me all the literature you’ve collected on this subject when I come back. Say, the gold trail again! I’m just tickled to death.”