“Oh, that’s like Mr. Sid Kleet. And that Shaw Gavin. And those men in Seattle.”

“Perhaps. But there are others—lots of them—that you don’t know and never heard of.”

“It doesn’t sound honest.”

“It’s so considered. It’s as well to have it legal and out in the open as behind closed doors. At any rate, people know it’s going on, and how it’s done.”

“But you can do anything. You can tell the world. About the fish and the forests and the metals and the taxes and the—–”

“Child, the world isn’t interested in fish, it only sounds comic, and the world isn’t interested in Alaska, and the world isn’t interested in me. It’s as simple as that. Alaska salmon is just something in a can. They don’t know it’s millions and millions of dollars, almost untaxed, to men who never have even seen Alaska. Alaska itself, to them, is an iceberg peopled by Eskimos and polar bears who eat each other. The forests, the metals, the great fishing industry—it’s all the same, it goes Outside, it’s owned Outside, the world doesn’t hear about it, or care, it isn’t very dramatic, anyway, people don’t want to hear about fish and forests and minerals, it isn’t front-page news. And they wouldn’t believe it if they did hear it or read it. It’s part of a past era, like the old days of the grabbers and what they called the Robber Barons. It’s still going on here, full blast, with Seattle and San Francisco and the lobbyists in Washington as the power plant. But who cares!”

“You do! And—and Paul and Addie and even Bridie, I suppose, and some of those people we saw in Juneau, in the Legislature, I mean. They’d listen to you. And the people Outside would, too.”

“Outside doesn’t read the Northern Light.”

“The work you’ve done just now—is that all right? Is it all right, I mean?” She was very solemn.

The old man’s clear steady blue eyes looked into the girl’s perplexed dark eyes. “If it weren’t, Christine, I’d rather leave you as unschooled as a savage. You know that, don’t you?”

“Then I don’t see why you don’t go to Washington as those men do. Go there and do something about it.”

“You can’t just go to Washington and stand before the Senate or Congress assembled, and yell.”

“I would. I’d go and yell at the top of my voice.”

“You’d only be thrown out, you foolish child. It takes money and money and money. Millions, because all the rich things in the Territory are worth millions.”

“People would listen if you told them. I’m listening. I’m interested.”

“No they wouldn’t.”

“Why! Why!” The child again, asking questions.