THE SILENT CABIN By Evan Merrit Post THE TRAIL WAS ROUGH, THE CRUEL ARCTIC WINTER WAS ALREADY CLOSING IN, AND THE SETTLEMENTS WERE STILL FAR AWAY. THERE WAS EVERY NEED FOR HASTE. AND THEN THEY CAME, THE OLD-TIMER AND THE CHECHAKO, TO THE SILENT CABIN BESIDE THE TRAIL. Farrell knew that he was a dying man. There remained in his mind not the shadow of a doubt on that score. Sitting at the present moment in the open doorway of his cabin, he gazed out over the frost-colored forests which for five years now had been a part of his life. A very close and integral part. He loved the forests, and especially did he love them in the flaming beauty of the fall garb which cloaked them at this time. His only regret, now that he knew he was leaving it all for good, was that he hadn’t come up here sooner in his life. Well, he reflected, he had nothing to complain about, by and large. His life had on the whole been an eventful and satisfying one, and even the touch of tragedy that had sent him north no longer caused him the inward pain which it had at first. Yes, taken as a whole, his had been a happy life, as lives go. He was sure of that. And if he had erred here and there--and he knew, of course, that such had been the case--he had, by the same token, now and again gone out of his way to do things that had caused others happiness. At the present moment this was a comforting and reassuring thought. Somehow he felt strangely at peace with the world. Nor did the conviction that he was soon to die alone and unattended up here in the wilderness appall him. He found himself looking forward to it, rather, with a certain contented resignation, as do men who have an abiding faith that the next world is one step better than the present plane. At any rate he had no regrets as he sat now in his doorway, smoking his pipe and gazing out over the gold and crimson forests which he loved so well. That is, he had no regrets save one. One thing did trouble him, it is true. It had been troubling him for some days past. Dying alone as he knew he would, it would be hard to attend to, and there was furthermore no certainty that anyone would pass this way for some months to come. He pondered for some time upon this, turning it over in his mind, seeking a solution and gradually as he puffed upon his pipe a way out occurred to him. He nodded his head as if in approval. “Yes, I guess that’s the best, Farrell,” he mused presently, “I’ll do that. Sort of let it rest that way.” And rising and going slowly to the table, he took up a piece of dry birchbark and proceeded to write thereon his last request. * * * * * Winter had laid hold of the Fairbanks country. Snow bowed the limbs of the spruces. The strong Alaskan cold had come to stay.