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"The Chugach forest contains some marketable timber on the lower Pacific slopes," he replied, "where there is excessive precipitation and the influence of the warm Japan current, but along the streams on the other side of the divide there are only occasional growths of scrubby spruce, hardly suitable for telegraph poles or even railroad ties."
The earth, bared in patches, gave and oozed like a sponge. It was impossible to follow Weatherbee's trail, but I picked it up once more, where it came into the other, along the Chugach foot-hills. Slides began to block the way; ice glazed the overflows at night; and at last a cold wave struck down from the summits; the track stiffened in an hour and it was hard as steel underfoot.
Bromley was in no hurry to precipitate the side issue for which he had prepared. Every one who had taken coal land in the Morganstein group had been on the witness stand, and many more who had not filed claims had given testimony, yet the prosecution held him in reserve. Then came a day when Lucky Banks, recalled to tell what he knew about the Chugach trail, made some astonishing statements.
We wished to build a narrow-gauge road it was then in course of construction but the survey was through the Chugach Mountains, the most rugged in North America. The cost of moving material, after it was shipped from the States, was almost prohibitive; ordinary labor commanded higher wages than are paid skilled mechanics here in Seattle." "Mr.
He paused an instant then went on mellowly: "Gifford Pinchot was thousands of miles away; he never had seen Alaska, when he suggested that the Executive set aside the Chugach forest reserve.
"And you are particularly familiar with the locality included in the Chugach forest reserve, I understand, Mr. Tisdale. Tell us a little about it. It contains vast reaches of valuable and marketable timber, does it not?" The genial lines crinkled lightly in Tisdale's face.
On such runs one man steers the boat and watches the forested shoreline for three or four hours at a time, while his mate reads or sleeps; then they change off. In this way, they are able to make the most efficient use of the long periods of daylight. The other big timberland in Alaska is the Chugach National Forest. It is a smaller edition of the Tongass Forest.
"There wasn't any fallen timber," responded Banks dryly; "and likely we would have took it green, if there had been a tree in sight. It was getting mighty cold, nights, and with the frost in his wet clothes, a man needs a warm supper to hearten him." "What?" exclaimed Mr. Bromley sharply. "Do you mean you saw no trees? Remember you were in the Chugach forest; or did you lose your way?" "No, sir.
He put one hundred and fifty thousand into the Chugach Railway to bring out the coal he had mined, but he can't touch it; it's all tied up in red tape; the road is rotting away. He is getting to be an old man, but I saw him doing day labor on the Seattle streets to-day. Then there's the Copper River Northwestern.
Banks nodded this time with a kind of fierceness; his eyes scintillated a white heat, but he suppressed the imminent explosion and began with forced mildness, "My, yes. But you imagine a man trying to locate with ninety-five per cent. of the country reserved. First you've got to consider the Coast Range. The great wall of China's nothing but a line of ninepins to the Chugach and St. Elias wall.
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