It was the winter of 1893. In one of the Forty Mile¹s saloons, Jim Washburn watched as the prospector sitting across from him fanned his cards out on the tabletop, looked up, and grinned. The Forty Mile tough-guy sat in stunned silence. Washburn could have sworn he had his opponent pegged. It was inconceivable that he had read him wrongly. Where had that hand come from, all of a sudden? Dropping his cards, Washburn reached across his belt. The glint of the knife blade flashed in the lamplight as he lunged across the heavy wooden table, spilling poker chips left and right. The man across the table stared open-mouthed at the spreading line of red staining his torn shirt. He looked up and took in Washburn¹s taunting leer. Then, without rising from his chair, the man calmly reached down, lifted up his revolver, pointed it at Washburn and squeezed the trigger. The ears of every man in the saloon rang with the report. When the smoke drifted away, Washburn was writhing wordlessly on the plank floor, hands clutching his hip, blood seeping between his fingers. The time for law and order in the Yukon had come at last.