Rex Ellingwood Beach was an American novelist and playwrighter. His adventure novels, influenced by Jack London, were immensely popular. Beach was lionized as the "Victor Hugo of the North,".The Iron Trail is a story of Alaska in which the government policy as regards the coal fields is strongly criticized. The interest centers about an irresistible Irishman who is bound to conquer the wilderness of glacier and river and gorge with his railroad and bridges. He does it, of course, and in the process also conquers the bright girl reporter who has been sent by her paper to "write him up."