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He was smoking a pungent Turkish cigarette liberally besprinkled with gold lettering, and the while he was studying the extensive deed of title relating to a corner block in the chief avenue of the city. An air of calm satisfaction pervaded the man, for he knew that the property under consideration was about to fall into his hands at a price which even he regarded as advantageous. It was what he desired.

He was a shrewd creature with a wide vision in the matter of self-interest. Whatever others might think of Beacon Glory, he, at least, had no doubts. He realised with absolute certainty that the place was there to stay. It was within twenty miles of a fine, wide harbour for shipping from the South. It was built on the shores of a large lake whose name, since the city’s building, had become associated with the place, and it occupied a site in the heart of a splendid valley which ran right down to the sea and was the highway to the interior of Alaska through the otherwise almost impassable world of the southern hills. It was the centre of a gold region that was as yet in its infancy. Furthermore, there was coal and iron, and undoubtedly oil in abundance in the broken world about it. The place was “flat” now as a reaction from its original boom, but it was moving steadily if slowly, and the right men were drifting in with a view to exploring its resources.