“I swore an oath then, by the devil himself, that if the time ever came that I’d have opportunity, I’d show society just what kind of an enemy I was. Sometime, I thought, that time would come. What made me think so I can’t tell. Sometime I’d pay ’em back for all they had done to me.
“One day the chance came to escape. While more cowardly men would have hesitated, I pushed through and out. On the way I learned a little lesson—that none of the larger creatures of the wild die as easily as men. I found out that there is nothing more to killing a man that is in your way than killing a caribou I want to eat. I didn’t feel any worse about it afterward. After that I decided I would never compromise with a man who was in my way. The other method was too easy. Remember it in all our relations to come.
“I had to come across here. I couldn’t forever escape the hue and cry that was raised. Ultimately I landed on this little island—with Sindy and a few steel traps.
“In this climate we can trap almost the whole year round. We can start putting them out in a few days more—keep them out clear till June. Every year a ship—the Intrepid that you’ve likely heard of—touches here to buy my furs—just one trip a year—and it leaves here supplies of all kinds in exchange. But don’t take hope from that. Hope is one thing you want to get out of your systems. The captain of the Intrepid and his Japanese crew are the only human beings that know I live here, except yourself—that know there’s a human occupant on this island. On their yearly visit I’ll see to it that none of them get a sight of you.
“Once I was used to working all day from dawn to dark, with an armed master on guard over me. It isn’t going to be that way from now on. I’m going to be the armed master. The next few days you’re going to spend building yourselves a shack and cutting winter fuel. Then each of you will have a trap line—a good stiff one, too. Every day you’ll go out and follow your line of traps—baiting, skinning and fleshing, drying the skins when you get to the cabins. You’ll know what it really is to be cold, then; you’ll know what work means, too. With you three I expect to triple my usual season’s catch, building up three times as fast the fortune I need.
“All my life I’ve looked forward to a chance to give society the same kind of treatment it gave to me—and when that fortune is large enough to work with, there will be a new dynasty arise in Russia. In the meantime, you’re going to get the same treatment I did—hard labor for life! You’re going to have an armed guard over you to shoot you down if you show the least sign of mutiny. You’ll obey every command and lick my boots if I tell you to. I said then, when the chance came, I’d grind society down—or any representatives of society that came into my power—just as it ground me down. This is the beginning of my triumph. You, you three—represent all I hated. Wealth—constituted authority—softness and ease and luxury. I’ll teach you what softness is! You’ll know what a heaven a hard bed can be, after a day in the wind off Bering Straits. You’ll find out what luxury is, too.” His wild laugh blew like a wind through the room. “And incidentally, my fur output will be increased by three, my final dream brought three times nearer.
“What I want from you I’ll take. You’re in hell if there is such a place—and you’ll know it plenty soon.” He turned to Ned, his lip curled in scorn. “Your feeble arms over the chair back won’t protect that girl if I make up my mind I want her. At present you may be safe from that—simply because some conquests aren’t any pleasure if they’re made with force. If I want either of you,” his gaze flashed toward Bess, “I’m not afraid that I’ll have to descend to force to get you.
“When I said to abandon hope I meant it. You have no boat, and I’ll give you no chance to make one. The distance is too great across the ice ever to make it through; besides, you won’t be given a chance to try. No ships will come here to look for you. No matter what wealth and power you represented down there, you’ll be forgotten soon enough. Others will take your place, other girls will reign at the balls, and other men will spend your money. You will be up here, as lost and forgotten as if you were in the real hell you’ll go to in the end.
“Even if your doting fathers should send out a search party, they will overlook this little island. It was just a freak of the currents that you landed here—I don’t see yet why you weren’t blown to Tzar Island, immediately east of here. When they find you aren’t there, and pick up any other lifeboats from your ship that in all probability landed there, they’ll be glad enough to turn around and go back. Especially if they see your lifeboat floating bottom upward in the water!
“You should never have come to the North, you three! Society should never move from the civilization that has been built to protect it—otherwise it will find forces too big and too cruel to master. You’re all weaklings, soft as putty—without the nerve of a ptarmigan. Already I’ve crushed the resistance out of you. All my life I’ve dreamed of some such chance as this, and yet you can’t fight enough to make it interesting for me. You’ll be docile, hopeless slaves until you die.”