“Know what I think?” he piped in that high thin voice, “I think Czar’s a little bit scared of Thor, a little bit scared. And I think he can’t get over the feeling that he and Thor used to be pardners in a way. And then there’s the family, there’s Czar’s girl married to Thor’s boy—or was. You can’t loosen ties like that, not so easy. It killed my daughter, marrying into that family, but Czar goes his own way, nothing can turn him aside, nothing can turn him aside.”

Czar wagged his head from side to side, as though in admiration for a child—or in sympathy for senility. “Einar, you’re a great old guy. Yessir, you’ll always be yourself, no matter how old you get.”

Mort Caswell now shuffled the papers on his desk, he pushed back his chair and leaned forward, half rising. “Well, gentlemen, I don’t believe there’s anything more just now, we’ll be meeting again tomorrow, I hate to be the one to break this up, but I have a business luncheon appointment at one—–”

Dave Husack stood up, a towering figure. “Anyway, that advertising idea is kid stuff.” Belligerently he turned his empurpled face toward Sid Kleet. “Tell Baranof businessmen to take their advertising away from Storm and they’ll feel he’s getting a tough deal, they’ll stick by him, that’s the way those crazy Alaska people do. There’s other ways, better. When the time comes, stop his print paper supply. He gets his paper from Canada, don’t he? We can stop it altogether or if we can’t do that we can make it so they’ll have to route it to him to Seattle and then all the way across from Seattle to Baranof, he won’t be able to afford that, nobody could. And his printers. Get after them through the union and no printer will work for him, wouldn’t dare to, or linotyper either. You can’t get out a newspaper without print paper and printers and linotype operators, can you! So there you are, boys, and what d’you say lunch?”

Three now were standing. Only Czar remained seated, his hands clasped easily in his lap, his face tilted up toward the others.

“Thor Storm,” he said, as though ruminating, “has got a young fella there in the Northern Light, working for him, he’s got a little bit of money in the paper, too. Barnett, his name is. Paul Barnett. He’s a Harvard boy, no less, but smart, you’ve got to hand it to him. Real smart.”

“What’s that got to do with it?” Sid Kleet snapped. He rarely allowed himself to show irritation, but Dave Husack had offended him deeply, he was impelled to strike out at someone, anyone.

“Nothing. Maybe nothing. Only, when you talk about taking away the Northern Light’s advertising and stopping the print paper and so on, why, you don’t know Thor and you don’t known Barnett. Paul and Thor both can set up a paper by hand if they have to, and they’re both licensed linotype operators, and they can run the press and do the leg work getting the news, they could double as the office cat if they had to. They’re no friends of mine, but I’m telling you, just in case. And Thor? Boys, Thor would get that weekly out, believe me when I say it, if he had to print it on toilet paper with a lead pencil.”