To Harvey, of the dome-like pate,
The dreamy eye, the Celtic wit
And kindly heart, I dedicate
This blithe romance conceived and writ
By one of that triumvirate
Who knew Defeat, yet conquered it.
CONTENTS
The Man Who Couldn't Sleep
CHAPTER I
RUNNING OUT OF PAY-DIRT
To begin with, I am a Canadian by birth, and thirty-three years old. For nine of those years I have lived in New York. And by my friends in that city I am regarded as a successful author.
There was a time when I even regarded myself in much the same light. But that period is past. I now have to face the fact that I am a failure. For when a man is no longer able to write he naturally can no longer be reckoned as an author.
I have made the name of Witter Kerfoot too well known, I think, to explain that practically all of my stories have been written about Alaska. Just why I resorted to that far-off country for my settings is still more or less a mystery to me. Perhaps it was merely because of its far-offness. Perhaps it was because the editors remembered that I came from the land of the beaver and sagely concluded that a Canadian would be most at home in writing about the Frozen North. At any rate, when I romanced about the Yukon and its ice-bound trails they bought my stories, and asked for more.