THE -SON -OF/ 
 THE WOLPV 
 
c 
 
:JBRARY 
 JMIVER5ITY Of 
 CALIPORhMA 
 

 MALEMUTE KID HALTED HIM (page 64) 
 
THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 ale# of tfje far 
 
 BY 
 
 JACK LONDON 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 Otfc ttfcetffte prcf 3^, Cambribge 
 
 1900 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY JACK LONDON 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 SERVICE 
 
TO 
 
 THE SONS OF THE WOLF 
 
 WHO SOUGHT THEIR HERITAGE AND 
 
 LEFT THEIR BONES AMONG THE 
 
 SHADOWS OF THE 
 
 CIRCLE 
 
 795 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGB 
 
 THE WHITE SILENCE 1 
 
 THE SON OF THE WOLF 21 
 
 THE MEN OF FORTY-MILE 52 
 
 IN A FAR COUNTRY 69 
 
 To THE MAN ON TRAIL . . . . . .102 
 
 THE PRIESTLY PREROGATIVE .... 119 
 
 THE WISDOM OF THE TRAIL 145 
 
 THE WIFE OF A KING 160 
 
 AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH 190 
 
 The gathering of these tales under one cover is due to the 
 courtesy of the "Overland Monthly" and the "Atlantic 
 Monthly," in the pages of which magazines they have already 
 seen print. 
 
THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 THE WHITE SILENCE 
 
 "CARMEN won t last more than a couple 
 of days." Mason spat out a chunk of ice 
 and surveyed the poor animal ruefully, then 
 put her foot in his mouth and proceeded to 
 bite out the ice which clustered cruelly be 
 tween the toes. 
 
 "I never saw a dog with a highfalutin 
 name that ever was worth a rap/ he said, as 
 he concluded his task and shoved her aside. 
 " They just fade away and die under the 
 responsibility. Did ye ever see one go wrong 
 with a sensible name like Cassiar, Siwash, or 
 Husky ? No, sir ! Take a look at Shookum 
 here, he s " 
 
 Snap ! The lean brute flashed up ; the 
 white teeth just missing Mason s throat. 
 
 " Ye will, will ye ? " A shrewd clout be 
 hind the ear with the butt of the dogwhip 
 
2 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 stretched the animal in the snow, quivering 
 softly, a yellow slaver dripping from its 
 fangs. 
 
 " As I was saying, just look at Shookum, 
 here he s got the spirit. Bet ye he eats 
 Carmen before the week s out." 
 
 " I 11 bank another proposition against 
 that," replied Malemute Kid, reversing the 
 frozen bread placed before the fire to thaw. 
 " We 11 eat Shookum before the trip is over. 
 What d ye say, Ruth?" 
 
 The Indian woman settled the coffee with 
 a piece of ice, glanced from Malemute Kid to 
 her husband, then at the dogs, but vouch 
 safed no reply. It was such a palpable tru 
 ism that none was necessary. Two hundred 
 miles of unbroken trail in prospect, with a 
 scant six days grub for themselves and none 
 for the dogs, could admit no other alterna 
 tive. The two men and the woman grouped 
 about the fire and began their meagre meal. 
 The dogs lay in their harnesses, for it was a 
 midday halt, and watched each mouthful 
 enviously. 
 
 " No more lunches after to-day," said 
 Malemute Kid. " And we ve got to keep 
 a close eye on the dogs, they re getting 
 
THE WHITE SILENCE 3 
 
 vicious. They d just as soon pull a fellow 
 down as not, if they get a chance." 
 
 " And I was president of an Epworth once, 
 and taught in the Sunday school." Hav 
 ing irrelevantly delivered himself of this, 
 Mason fell into a dreamy contemplation of 
 his steaming moccasins, but was aroused by 
 Kuth filling his cup. " Thank God, we ve 
 got slathers of tea ! I ve seen it growing, 
 down in Tennessee. What would n t I give 
 for a hot corn pone just now ! Never mind, 
 Ruth ; you won t starve much longer, nor 
 wear moccasins either." 
 
 The woman threw off her gloom at this, 
 and in her eyes welled up a great love for her 
 white lord, the first white man she had 
 ever seen, the first man whom she had 
 known to treat a woman as something better 
 than a mere animal or beast of burden. 
 
 "Yes, Ruth," continued her husband, 
 having recourse to the macaronic jargon in 
 which it was alone possible for them to under 
 stand each other ; " wait till we clean up and 
 pull for the Outside. We 11 take the White 
 Man s canoe and go to the Salt Water. Yes, 
 bad water, rough water, great mountains 
 dance up and down all the time. And so big, 
 
4 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 so far, so far away, you travel ten sleep, 
 twenty sleep, forty sleep " (he graphically 
 enumerated the days on his fingers), " all the 
 time water, bad water. Then you come to 
 great village, plenty people, just the same mos 
 quitoes next summer. Wigwams oh, so high, 
 - ten, twenty pines. Hi-yu skookum ! " 
 
 He paused impotently, cast an appealing 
 glance at Malemute Kid, then laboriously 
 placed the twenty pines, end on end, by sign 
 language. Malemute Kid smiled with cheery 
 cynicism; but Ruth s eyes were wide with 
 wonder, and with pleasure ; for she half be 
 lieved he was joking, and such condescension 
 pleased her poor woman s heart. 
 
 " And then you step into a a box, and 
 pouf ! up you go." He tossed his empty 
 cup in the air by way of illustration, and as 
 he deftly caught it, cried : " And biff ! down 
 you come. Oh, great medicine-men ! You 
 go Fort Yukon, I go Arctic City, twenty- 
 five sleep, big string, all the time, I 
 catch him string, I say, Hello, Ruth ! 
 How are ye ? and you say, Is that my 
 good husband ? and I say Yes, and 
 you say, No can bake good bread, no more 
 soda, - - then I say, Look in cache, under 
 
THE WHITE SILENCE 5 
 
 flour ; good-by. You look and catch plenty 
 soda. All the time you Fort Yukon, me 
 Arctic City. Hi-yu medicine-man ! " 
 
 Ruth smiled so ingenuously at the fairy 
 story, that both men burst into laughter. A 
 row among the dogs cut short the wonders 
 of the Outside, and by the time the snarling 
 combatants were separated, she had lashed 
 the sleds and all was ready for the trail. 
 
 "Mush! Baldy! Hi! Mush on!" Mason 
 worked his whip smartly, and as the dogs 
 whined low in the traces, broke out the sled 
 with the gee-pole. Ruth followed with the 
 second team, leaving Malemute Kid, who had 
 helped her start, to bring up the rear. Strong 
 man, brute that he was, capable of feUing an 
 ox at a blow, he could not bear to beat the 
 poor animals, but humored them as a dog- 
 driver rarely does, nay, almost wept with 
 them in their misery. 
 
 " Come, mush on there, you poor sore- 
 footed brutes ! " he murmured, after several 
 ineffectual attempts to start the load. But 
 his patience was at last rewarded, and though 
 whimpering with pain, they hastened to join 
 their fellows. 
 
6 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 No more conversation ; the toil of the trail 
 will not permit such extravagance. And of 
 all deadening labors, that of the Northland 
 trail is the worst. Happy is the man who 
 can weather a day s travel at the price of 
 silence, and that on a beaten track. 
 
 And of all heart-breaking labors, that of 
 breaking trail is the worst. At every step 
 the great webbed shoe sinks till the snow is 
 level with the knee. Then up, straight up, 
 the deviation of a fraction of an inch being 
 a certain precursor of disaster, the snowshoe 
 must be lifted till the surface is cleared ; then 
 forward, down, and the other foot is raised 
 perpendicularly for the matter of half a yard. 
 He who tries this for the first time, if haply 
 he avoids bringing his shoes in dangerous 
 
 O O & 
 
 propinquity and measures not his length on 
 the treacherous footing, will give up ex 
 hausted at the end of a hundred yards ; he 
 who can keep out of the way of the dogs for 
 a whole day may well crawl into his sleeping- 
 bag with a clear conscience and a pride which 
 passeth all understanding ; and he who trav 
 els twenty sleeps on the Long Trail is a man 
 whom the gods may envy. 
 
 The afternoon wore on, and with the awe, 
 
THE WHITE SILENCE 7 
 
 born of the White Silence, the voiceless trav 
 elers bent to their work. Nature has many 
 tricks wherewith she convinces man of his 
 finity, the ceaseless flow of the tides, the 
 fury of the storm, the shock of the earth 
 quake, the long roll of heaven s artillery, 
 but the most tremendous, the most stupefy 
 ing of all, is the passive phase of the White 
 Silence. All movement ceases, the sky clears, 
 the heavens are as brass ; the slightest whis 
 per seems sacrilege, and man becomes timid, 
 affrighted at the sound of his own voice. 
 Sole speck of life journeying across the 
 ghostly wastes of a dead world, he trembles 
 at his audacity, realizes that his is a maggot s 
 life, nothing more. Strange thoughts arise 
 unsummoned, and the mystery of all things 
 strives for utterance. And the fear of death, 
 of God, of the universe, comes over him, 
 the hope of the Kesurrection and the Life, 
 the yearning for immortality, the vain striv 
 ing of the imprisoned essence, it is then, 
 if ever, man walks alone with God. 
 
 So wore the day away. The river took a 
 great bend, and Mason headed his team for 
 the cut-off across the narrow neck of land. 
 But the dogs balked at the high bank. 
 
8 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 Again and again, though Kuth and Male- 
 mute Kid were shoving on the sled, they 
 slipped back. Then came the concerted 
 effort. The miserable creatures, weak from 
 hunger, exerted their last strength. Up 
 up the sled poised on the top of the bank ; 
 but the leader swung the string of dogs be 
 hind him to the right, fouling Mason s snow- 
 shoes. The result was grievous. Mason was 
 whipped off his feet ; one of the dogs fell in 
 the traces ; and the sled toppled back, drag 
 ging every thing to the bottom again. 
 
 Slash ! the whip fell among the dogs sav 
 agely, especially upon the one which had 
 fallen. 
 
 " Don t, Mason," entreated Malemute Kid ; 
 " the poor devil s on its last legs. Wait and 
 we 11 put my team on." 
 
 Mason deliberately withheld the whip till 
 the last word had fallen, then out flashed the 
 long lash, completely curling about the of 
 fending creature s body. Carmen for it 
 was Carmen cowered in the snow, cried 
 piteously, then rolled over on her side. 
 
 It was a tragic moment, a pitiful incident 
 of the trail, a dying dog, two comrades in 
 anger. Ruth glanced solicitously from man 
 
THE WHITE SILENCE 9 
 
 to man. But Malemute Kid restrained him 
 self, though there was a world of reproach in 
 his eyes, and bending over the dog, cut the 
 traces. No word was spoken. The teams 
 were double-spanned and the difficulty over 
 come ; the sleds were under way again, the 
 dying dog dragging herself along in the rear. 
 As long as an animal can travel, it is not 
 shot, and this last chance is accorded it, the 
 crawling into camp, if it can, in the hope of 
 a moose being killed. 
 
 Already penitent for his angry action, but 
 too stubborn to make amends, Mason toiled 
 on at the head of the cavalcade, little dream 
 ing that danger hovered in the air. The 
 timber clustered thick in the sheltered bot 
 tom, and through this they threaded their 
 way. Fifty feet or more from the trail tow 
 ered a lofty pine. For generations it had 
 stood there, and for generations destiny had 
 had this one end in view, perhaps the 
 same had been decreed of Mason. 
 
 He stooped to fasten the loosened thong 
 of his moccasin. The sleds came to a halt 
 and the dogs lay down in the snow without 
 a whimper. The stillness was weird ; not a 
 breath rustled the frost-encrusted forest ; the 
 
10 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 cold and silence of outer space had chilled 
 the heart and smote the trembling lips of 
 nature. A sigh pulsed through the air, 
 they did not seem to actually hear it, but 
 rather felt it, like the premonition of move 
 ment in a motionless void. Then the great 
 tree, burdened with its weight of years and 
 snow, played its last part in the tragedy of 
 life. He heard the warning crash and at 
 tempted to spring up, but almost erect, 
 caught the blow squarely on the shoulder. 
 
 The sudden danger, the quick death, 
 how often had Malemute Kid faced it ! The 
 pine needles were still quivering as he gave 
 his commands and sprang into action. Nor 
 did the Indian girl faint or raise her voice in 
 idle wailing, as might many of her white sis 
 ters. At his order, she threw her weight on 
 the end of a quickly extemporized handspike, 
 easing the pressure and listening to her hus 
 band s groans, while Malemute Kid attacked 
 the tree with his axe. The steel rang merrily 
 as it bit into the frozen trunk, each stroke 
 being accompanied by a forced, audible re 
 spiration, the " Huh ! " " Huh ! " of the 
 woodsman. 
 
 At last the Kid laid the pitiable thing that 
 
THE WHITE SILENCE 11 
 
 was once a man in the snow. But worse 
 than his comrade s pain was the dumb an 
 guish in the woman s face, the blended look 
 of hopeful, hopeless query. Little was said ; 
 those of the Northland are early taught the 
 futility of words and the inestimable value 
 of deeds. With the temperature at sixty-five 
 below zero, a man cannot lie many minutes 
 in the snow and live. So the sled-lashings 
 were cut, and the sufferer, rolled in furs, laid 
 on a couch of boughs. Before him roared a 
 fire, built of the very wood which wrought 
 the mishap. Behind and partially over him 
 was stretched the primitive fly, a piece of 
 canvas, which caught the radiating heat and 
 threw it back and down upon him, a trick 
 which men may know who study physics at 
 the fount. 
 
 And men who have shared their bed with 
 death know when the call is sounded. Mason 
 was terribly crushed. The most cursory ex 
 amination revealed it. His right arm, leg, 
 and back, were broken ; his limbs were para 
 lyzed from the hips ; and the likelihood of 
 internal injuries was large. An occasional 
 moan was his only sign of life. 
 
 No hope ; nothing to be done. The piti- 
 
12 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 less night crept slowly by, Ruth s portion, 
 the despairing stoicism of her race, and Male- 
 mute Kid adding new lines to his face of 
 bronze. In fact, Mason suffered least of all, 
 for he spent his time in Eastern Tennessee, 
 in the Great Smoky Mountains, living over 
 the scenes of his childhood. And most pa 
 thetic was the melody of his long-forgotten 
 Southern vernacular, as he raved of swim 
 ming-holes and coon-hunts and watermelon 
 raids. It was as Greek to Ruth, but the 
 Kid understood and felt, felt as only one 
 can feel who has been shut out for years 
 from all that civilization means. 
 
 Morning brought consciousness to the 
 stricken man, and Malemute Kid bent closer 
 to catch his whispers. 
 
 " You remember when we foregathered on 
 the Tanana, four years come next ice-run ? I 
 did n t care so much for her then. It was 
 more like she was pretty, and there was a 
 smack of excitement about it, I think. But 
 d ye know, I ve come to think a heap of 
 her. She s been a good wife to me, always 
 at my shoulder in the pinch. And when it 
 comes to trading, you know there is n t her 
 equal. D ye recollect the time she shot the 
 
THE WHITE SILENCE 13 
 
 Moosehorn Rapids to pull you and me off 
 that rock, the bullets whipping the water like 
 hailstones ? and the time of the famine at 
 Nuklukyeto ? or when she raced the ice- 
 run to bring the news ? Yes, she s been a 
 good wife to me, better n that other one. 
 Didn t know I d been there? Never told 
 you, eh ? Well, I tried it once, down in the 
 States. That s why I m here. Been raised 
 together, too. I came away to give her a 
 chance for divorce. She got it. 
 
 " But that s got nothing to do with Ruth. 
 I had thought of cleaning up and pulling for 
 the Outside next year, her and I, but 
 it s too late. Don t send her back to her 
 people, Kid. It s beastly hard for a woman 
 to go back. Think of it ! nearly four 
 years on our bacon and beans and flour and 
 dried fruit, and then to go back to her fish 
 and cariboo. It s not good for her to have 
 tried our ways, to come to know they re bet 
 ter n her people s, and then return to them. 
 Take care of her, Kid, why don t you, 
 but no, you always fought shy of them, 
 and you never told me why you came to this 
 country. Be kind to her, and send her back 
 to the States as soon as you can. But fix it 
 
14 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 so as she can come back, liable to get 
 homesick, you know. 
 
 " And the youngster it s drawn us 
 closer, Kid. I only hope it is a boy. Think 
 of it ! flesh of my flesh, Kid. He must n t 
 stop in this country. And if it s a girl, why 
 she can t. Sell my furs ; they 11 fetch at 
 least five thousand, and I ve got as much 
 more with the company. And handle my 
 interests with yours. I think that bench 
 claim will show up. See that he gets a 
 good schooling; and Kid, above all, don t 
 let him come back. This country was not 
 made for white men. 
 
 " I m a gone man, Kid. Three or four 
 sleeps at the best. You ve got to go on. 
 You must go on ! Remember, it s my wife, 
 it s my boy, God ! I hope it s a boy ! 
 You can t stay by me, and I charge you, a 
 dying man, to pull on." 
 
 " Give me three days," pleaded Malemute 
 Kid. " You may change for the better ; 
 something may turn up." 
 
 " No." 
 
 "Just three days." 
 
 " You must pull on." 
 
 "Two days." 
 
THE WHITE SILENCE 15 
 
 "It s my wife and my boy, Kid. You 
 would not ask it." 
 
 " One day." 
 
 " No, no ! I charge " 
 
 " Only one day. We can shave it through on 
 the grub, and I might knock over a moose." 
 
 " No, all right ; one day, but not a 
 minute more. And Kid, don t don t leave 
 me to face it alone. Just a shot, one pull on 
 the trigger. You understand. Think of it ! 
 Think of it! Flesh of my flesh, and I ll 
 never live to see him ! 
 
 " Send Ruth here. I want to say good-by 
 and tell her that she must think of the boy 
 and not wait till I m dead. She might refuse 
 to go with you if I didn t. Good-by, old 
 man ; good-by. 
 
 " Kid ! I say a sink a hole above the 
 pup, next to the slide. I panned out forty 
 cents on my shovel there. 
 
 " And Kid ! " he stooped lower to catch 
 the last faint words, the dying man s sur 
 render of his pride. " I m sorry for 
 you know Carmen." 
 
 Leaving the girl crying softly over her 
 man, Malemute Kid slipped into his parka 
 and snowshoes, tucked his rifle under his 
 
16 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 arm, and crept away into the forest. He 
 was no tyro in the stern sorrows of the 
 Northland, but never had he faced so stiff a 
 problem as this. In the abstract, it was a 
 plain, mathematical proposition, three pos 
 sible lives as against one doomed one. But 
 now he hesitated. For five years, shoulder 
 to shoulder, on the rivers and trails, in the 
 camps and mines, facing death by field and 
 flood and famine, had they knitted the bonds 
 of their comradeship. So close was the tie, 
 that he had often been conscious of a vague 
 jealousy of Ruth, from the first time she had 
 come between. And now it must be severed 
 by his own hand. 
 
 Though he prayed for a moose, just one 
 moose, all game seemed to have deserted the 
 land, and nightfall found the exhausted man 
 
 f O 
 
 crawling into camp, light-handed, heavy- 
 hearted. An uproar from the dogs and 
 shrill cries from Ruth hastened him. 
 
 Bursting into the camp, he saw the girl in 
 the midst of the snarling pack, laying about 
 her with an axe. The dogs had broken the 
 iron rule of their masters and were rushing 
 the grub. He joined the issue with his rifle 
 reversed, and the hoary game of natural selec- 
 
THE WHITE SILENCE 17 
 
 tion was played out with all the ruthlessness 
 of its primeval environment. Rifle and axe 
 went up and down, hit or missed with monot 
 onous regularity; lithe bodies flashed, with 
 wild eyes and dripping fangs ; and man and 
 beast fought for supremacy to the bitterest 
 conclusion. Then the beaten brutes crept to 
 the edge of the firelight, licking their wounds, 
 voicing their misery to the stars. 
 
 The whole stock of dried salmon had been 
 devoured, and perhaps five pounds of flour 
 remained to tide them over two hundred 
 miles of wilderness. Ruth returned to her 
 husband, while Malemute Kid cut up the 
 warm body of one of the dogs, the skull of 
 which had been crushed by the axe. Every 
 portion was carefully put away, save the hide 
 and offal, which were cast to his fellows of 
 the moment before. 
 
 Morning brought fresh trouble. The ani 
 mals were turning on each other. Carmen, 
 who still clung to her slender thread of life, 
 was downed by the pack. The lash fell 
 among them unheeded. They cringed and 
 cried under the blows, but refused to scatter 
 till the last wretched bit had disappeared, 
 bones, hide, hair, everything. 
 
18 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 Malemute Kid went about his work, listen 
 ing to Mason, who was back in Tennessee, 
 delivering tangled discourses and wild exhor 
 tations to his brethren of other days. 
 
 Taking advantage of neighboring pines, 
 he worked rapidly, and Ruth watched him 
 make a cache similar to those sometimes 
 used by hunters to preserve their meat from 
 the wolverines and dogs. One after the 
 other, he bent the tops of two small pines 
 toward each other and nearly to the ground, 
 making them fast with thongs of moosehide. 
 Then he beat the dogs into submission and 
 harnessed them to two of the sleds, loading 
 the same with everything but the furs which 
 enveloped Mason. These he wrapped and 
 lashed tightly about him, fastening either 
 end of the robes to the bent pines. A sin 
 gle stroke of his hunting-knife would release 
 them and send the body high in the air. 
 
 Ruth had received her husband s last 
 wishes and made no struggle. Poor girl, 
 she had learned the lesson of obedience well. 
 From a child, she had bowed, and seen all wo 
 men bow, to the lords of creation, and it did 
 not seem in the nature of things for woman 
 
THE WHITE SILENCE 19 
 
 to resist. The Kid permitted her one out 
 burst of grief, as she kissed her husband, 
 her own people had no such custom, then 
 led her to the foremost sled and helped her 
 into her snowshoes. Blindly, instinctively, 
 she took the gee-pole and whip, and 
 "mushed" the dogs out on the trail. Then 
 he returned to Mason, who had fallen into a 
 coma ; and long after she was out of sight, 
 crouched by the fire, waiting, hoping, praying 
 for his comrade to die. 
 
 It is not pleasant to be alone with painful 
 thoughts in the White Silence. The silence 
 of gloom is merciful, shrouding one as with 
 protection and breathing a thousand intangi 
 ble sympathies; but the bright White Si 
 lence, clear and cold, under steely skies, is 
 pitiless. 
 
 An hour passed, two hours, but the 
 man would not die. At high noon, the sun, 
 without raising its rim above the southern 
 horizon, threw a suggestion of fire athwart 
 the heavens, then quickly drew it back. 
 Malemute Kid roused and dragged himself 
 to his comrade s side. He cast one glance 
 about him. The White Silence seemed to 
 
20 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 sneer, and a great fear came upon him. 
 There was a sharp report ; Mason swung into 
 his aerial sepulchre ; and Malemute Kid 
 lashed the dogs into a wild gallop as he fled 
 across the snow. 
 
THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 MAN rarely places a proper valuation upon 
 his womankind, at least not until deprived o 
 them. He has no conception of the subtle 
 atmosphere exhaled by the sex feminine so 
 long as he bathes in it ; but let it be with 
 drawn, and an ever-growing void begins to 
 manifest itself in his existence, and he becomes 
 hungry, in a vague sort of way, for a some 
 thing so indefinite that he cannot character 
 ize it. If his comrades have no more experi 
 ence than himself, they will shake their heads 
 dubiously and dose him with strong physic. 
 But the hunger will continue and become 
 stronger ; he will lose interest in the things 
 of his every-day life and wax morbid ; and 
 one day, when the emptiness has become un 
 bearable, a revelation will dawn upon him. 
 
 In the Yukon country, when this comes to 
 pass, the man usually provisions a poling-boat, 
 if it be summer, and if winter harnesses his 
 dogs, and heads for the Southland. A few 
 months later, supposing him to be possessed 
 
22 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 of a faith in the country, he returns with a 
 wife to share with him in that faith, and inci 
 dentally in his hardships. This but serves to 
 show the innate selfishness of man. It also 
 brings us to the trouble of " Scruff " Macken 
 zie, which occurred in the old days, before 
 the country was stampeded and staked by a 
 tidal-wave of che-cha-qitas, and when the 
 Klondike s only claim to notice was its salmon 
 fisheries. 
 
 Scruff Mackenzie bore the ear-marks of a 
 frontier birth and a frontier life. His face 
 was stamped with twenty-five years of inces 
 sant struggle with nature in her wildest moods, 
 the last two, the wildest and hardest of all, 
 having been spent in groping for the gold 
 which lies in the shadow of the Arctic Circle. 
 When the yearning sickness came upon him 
 he was not surprised, for he was a practical 
 man and had seen other men thus stricken. 
 But he showed no sign of his malady, save 
 that he worked harder. All summer he fought 
 mosquitoes and washed the sure-thing bars of 
 the Stuart River for a double grub-stake. 
 Then he floated a raft of house-logs down the 
 Yukon to Forty Mile, and put together as 
 comfortable a cabin as any the camp could 
 
THE SON OF THE WOLF 23 
 
 boast of. In fact, it showed such cosy pro 
 mise that many men elected to be his partner 
 and to come and live with him. But he 
 crushed their aspirations with rough speech, 
 peculiar for its strength and brevity, and 
 bought a double supply of grub from the trad 
 ing-post. 
 
 As has been noted, Scruff Mackenzie was 
 a practical man. If he wanted a thing he 
 usually got it, but in doing so, went no 
 farther out of his way than was necessary. 
 Though a son of toil and hardship, he was 
 averse to a journey of six hundred miles on 
 the ice, a second of two thousand miles on 
 the ocean, and still a third thousand miles or 
 so to his last stamping-grounds, all in the 
 mere quest of a wife. Life was too short. So 
 he rounded up his dogs, lashed a curious 
 freight to his sled, and faced across the divide 
 whose westward slopes were drained by the 
 head-reaches of the Tanana. 
 
 He was a sturdy traveler, and his wolf-dogs 
 could work harder and travel farther on less 
 grub than any other team in the Yukon. 
 Three weeks later he strode into a hunting- 
 camp of the Upper Tanana Sticks. They 
 marveled at his temerity ; for they had a bad 
 
24 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 name and had been known to kill white men 
 for as trifling a thing as a sharp axe or a broken 
 rifle. But he went among them single-handed, 
 his bearing being a delicious composite of 
 humility, familiarity, sancj-froid, and inso 
 lence. It required a deft hand and deep 
 knowledge of the barbaric mind effectually 
 to handle such diverse weapons ; but he was 
 a past master in the art, knowing when to 
 conciliate and when to threaten with Jove-like 
 wrath. 
 
 He first made obeisance to the Chief Thling- 
 Tinneh, presenting him with a couple of 
 pounds of black tea and tobacco, and thereby 
 winning his most cordial regard. Then he 
 mingled with the men and maidens, and that 
 
 o " 
 
 night gave &potlao,li* The snow was beaten 
 down in the form of an oblong, perhaps a 
 hundred feet in length and quarter as many 
 across. Down the centre a long fire was 
 built, while either side was carpeted with 
 spruce boughs. The lodges were forsaken, 
 and the fivescore or so members of the tribe 
 gave tongue to their folk-chants in honor of 
 their guest. 
 
 Scruff Mackenzie s two years had taught 
 him the not many hundred words of their 
 
THE SON OF THE WOLF 25 
 
 vocabulary, and he had likewise conquered 
 their deep gutturals, their Japanese idioms, 
 constructions, and honorific and agglutinative 
 particles. So he made oration after their 
 manner, satisfying their instinctive poetry- 
 love with crude flights of eloquence and meta 
 phorical contortions. After Thling-Tinneh 
 and the Shaman had responded in kind, he 
 made trifling presents to the menfolk, joined 
 in their singing, and proved an expert in 
 their fifty-two-stick gambling game. 
 
 And they smoked his tobacco and were 
 pleased. But among the younger men there 
 was a defiant attitude, a spirit of braggadocio, 
 easily understood by the raw insinuations of 
 the toothless squaws and the giggling of the 
 maidens. They had known few white men, 
 " Sons of the Wolf," but from those few they 
 had learned strange lessons. 
 
 Nor had Scruff Mackenzie, for all his 
 seeming carelessness, failed to note these phe 
 nomena. In truth, rolled in his sleeping-furs, 
 he thought it all over, thought seriously, and 
 emptied many pipes in mapping out a cam 
 paign. One maiden only had caught his fancy, 
 none other than Zarinska, daughter to the 
 chief. In features, form, and poise, answer- 
 
26 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 ing more nearly to the white man s type of 
 beauty, she was almost an anomaly among 
 her tribal sisters. He would possess her, 
 make her his wife, and name her ah, he 
 would name her Gertrude ! Having thus de 
 cided, he rolled over on his side and dropped 
 off to sleep, a true son of his all-conquering 
 race. 
 
 It was slow work and a stiff game ; but 
 
 O 
 
 Scruff Mackenzie manreuvred cunningly, with 
 an unconcern which served to puzzle the 
 Sticks. He took great care to impress the 
 men that he was a sure shot and a mighty 
 hunter, and the camp rang with his plaudits 
 when he brought down a moose at six hun 
 dred yards. Of a night he visited in Chief 
 Thling-Tinneh s lodge of moose and cariboo 
 skins, talking big and dispensing tobacco with 
 a lavish hand. Nor did he fail to likewise honor 
 the Shaman ; for he realized the medicine-man s 
 influence with his people, and was anxious to 
 make of him an ally. But that worthy was 
 high and mighty, refused to be propitiated, 
 and was unerringly marked down as a pro 
 spective enemy. 
 
 Though no opening presented for an inter 
 view with Zarinska, Mackenzie stole many a 
 
THE SON OF THE WOLF 27 
 
 glance to her, giving fair warning of his in 
 tent. And well she knew, yet coquettishly 
 surrounded herself with a ring of women 
 whenever the men were away and he had a 
 chance. But he was in no hurry ; besides, 
 he knew she could not help but think of him, 
 and a few days of such thought would only 
 better his suit. 
 
 At last, one night, when he deemed the 
 time to be ripe, he abruptly left the chief s 
 smoky dwelling and hastened to a neighbor 
 ing lodge. As usual, she sat with squaws 
 and maidens about her, all engaged in sewing 
 moccasins and beadwork. They laughed at 
 his entrance, and badinage, which linked 
 Zarinska to him, ran high. But one after 
 the other they were unceremoniously bundled 
 into the outer snow, whence they hurried to 
 spread the tale through all the camp. 
 
 His cause was well pleaded, in her tongue, 
 for she did not know his, and at the end of 
 two hours he rose to go. 
 
 " So Zarinska will come to the White Man s 
 lodge ? Good ! I go now to have talk with 
 thy father, for he may not be so minded. 
 And I will give him many tokens ; but he 
 must not ask too much. If he say no ? Good ! 
 
28 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 Zarinska shall yet come to the White Man s 
 lodge." 
 
 He had already lifted the skin flap to de 
 part, when a low exclamation brought him 
 back to the girl s side. She brought herself to 
 her knees on the bearskin mat, her face aglow 
 with true Eve-light, and shyly unbuckled 
 his heavy belt. He looked down, perplexed, 
 suspicious, his ears alert for the slightest 
 sound without. But her next move disarmed 
 his doubt, and he smiled with pleasure. She 
 took from her sewing -bag a moosehide 
 sheath, brave with bright beadwork, fantastic 
 ally designed. She drew his great hunting- 
 knife, gazed reverently along the keen edge, 
 half tempted to try it with her thumb, and 
 shot it into place in its new home. Then she 
 slipped the sheath along the belt to its custom 
 ary resting-place, just above the hip. 
 
 For all the world, it was like a scene of 
 olden time, a lady and her knight. Mac 
 kenzie drew her up full height and swept 
 her red lips with his mustache, the, to her, 
 foreign caress of the Wolf. It was a meet 
 ing of the stone age and the steel. 
 
 There was a thrill of excitement in the air 
 
THE SON OF THE WOLF 29 
 
 as Scruff Mackenzie, a bulky bundle under 
 his arm, threw open the flap of Thling- 
 Tinneh s tent. Children were running about 
 in the open, dragging dry wood to the scene 
 of the potlach, a babble of women s voices 
 was growing in intensity, the young men 
 were consulting in sullen groups, while from 
 the Shaman s lodge rose the eerie sounds of 
 an incantation. 
 
 The chief was alone with his blear-eyed 
 wife, but a glance sufficed to tell Mackenzie 
 that the news was already old. So he plunged 
 at once into the business, shifting the beaded 
 sheath prominently to the fore as advertise 
 ment of the betrothal. 
 
 "0 Thling-Tinneh, mighty chief of the 
 Sticks and the land of the Tanana, ruler of 
 the salmon and the bear, the moose and the 
 cariboo ! The White Man is before thee with 
 a great purpose. Many moons has his lodge 
 been empty, and he is lonely. And his heart 
 has eaten itself in silence, and grown hungry 
 for a woman to sit beside him in his lodge, 
 to meet him from the hunt with warm fire 
 and good food. He has heard strange things, 
 the patter of baby moccasins and the sound 
 of children s voices. And one night a vision 
 
30 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 came upon him, and he beheld the Raven, 
 who is thy father, the great Raven, who 
 is the father of all the Sticks. And the 
 Raven spake to the lonely White Man, say 
 ing : Bind thou thy moccasins upon thee, 
 and gird thy snowshoes on, and lash thy sled 
 with food for many sleeps and fine tokens for 
 the Chief Thling-Tinneh. For thou shalt 
 turn thy face to where the midspring sun is 
 wont to sink below the land, and journey to 
 this great chief s hunting-grounds. There 
 thou shalt make big presents, and Thling- 
 Tinneh, who is my son, shall become to thee 
 as a father. In his lodge there is a maiden 
 into whom I breathed the breath of life for 
 thee. This maiden shalt thou take to wife. 
 
 " Chief, thus spake the great Raven ; 
 thus do I lay many presents at thy feet ; thus 
 am I come to take thy daughter ! " 
 
 The old man drew his furs about him with 
 crude consciousness of royalty, but delayed 
 reply while a youngster crept in, delivered a 
 quick message to appear before the council, 
 and was gone. 
 
 " White Man, whom we have named 
 Moose-Killer, also known as the Wolf, and the 
 Son of the Wolf ! We know thou comest of 
 
THE SON OF THE WOLF 31 
 
 a mighty race; we are proud to have thee 
 our potlach-guest -, but the king-salmon does 
 not mate with the dog-salmon, nor the Raven 
 with the Wolf." 
 
 " Not so ! " cried Mackenzie. " The daugh 
 ters of the Raven have I met in the camps 
 of the Wolf, the squaw of Mortimer, the 
 squaw of Tregidgo, the squaw of Barnaby, 
 who came two ice-runs back, and I have heard 
 of other squaws, though my eyes beheld them 
 not." 
 
 " Son, your words are true ; but it were 
 evil mating, like the water with the sand, like 
 the snowflake with the sun. But met you 
 one Mason and his squaw ? No ? He came 
 ten ice-runs ago, the first of all the Wolves. 
 And with him there was a mighty man, 
 straight as a willow-shoot, and tall ; strong as 
 the bald-faced grizzly, with a heart like the 
 full summer moon; his" 
 
 " Oh ! " interrupted Mackenzie, recogniz 
 ing the well-known Northland figure, 
 "MalemuteKid!" 
 
 " The same, a mighty man. But saw 
 you aught of the squaw ? She was full sis 
 ter to Zarinska." 
 
 " Nay, Chief ; but I have heard. Mason 
 
32 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 far, far to the north, a spruce-tree, heavy 
 with years, crushed out his life beneath. But 
 his love was great, and he had much gold. 
 With this, and her boy, she journeyed count 
 less sleeps toward the winter s noonday sun, 
 and there she yet lives, no biting frost, no 
 snow, no summer s midnight sun, no winter s 
 noonday night." 
 
 A second messenger interrupted with im 
 perative summons from the council. As Mac 
 kenzie threw him into the snow, he caught a 
 glimpse of the swaying forms before the 
 council-fire, heard the deep basses of the men 
 in rhythmic chant, and knew the Shaman 
 was fanning the anger of his people. Time 
 pressed. He turned upon the chief. 
 
 " Come ! I wish thy child. And now. 
 See ! here are tobacco, tea, many cups of 
 sugar, warm blankets, handkerchiefs, both 
 good and large ; and here, a true rifle, with 
 many bullets and much powder." 
 
 " Nay," replied the old man, struggling 
 against the great wealth spread before him. 
 " Even now are my people come together. 
 They will not have this marriage." 
 
 " But thou art chief." 
 
 " Yet do my young men rage because the 
 
THE SON OF THE WOLF 33 
 
 Wolves have taken their maidens so that they 
 may not marry." 
 
 " Listen, Thling-Tinneh ! Ere the night 
 has passed into the day, the Wolf shall face 
 his dogs to the Mountains of the East and 
 fare forth to the Country of the Yukon. -And 
 Zarinska shall break trail for his dogs." 
 
 "And ere the night has gained its middle, 
 my young men may fling to the dogs the 
 flesh of the Wolf, and his bones be scattered 
 in the snow till the springtime lay them bare." 
 
 It was threat and counter-threat. Mac 
 kenzie s bronzed face flushed darkly. He 
 raised his voice. The old squaw, who till 
 now had sat an impassive spectator, made to 
 creep by him for the door. The song of the 
 men broke suddenly, and there was a hubbub 
 of many voices as he whirled the old woman 
 roughly to her couch of skins. 
 
 " Again I cry listen, Thling-Tinneh ! 
 The Wolf dies with teeth fast-locked, and 
 with him there shall sleep ten of thy strong 
 est men, men who are needed, for the 
 hunting is but begun, and the fishing is not 
 many moons away. And again, of what 
 profit should I die ? I know the custom of 
 thy people ; thy share of my wealth shall be 
 
34 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 very small. Grant me thy child, and it shall 
 all be thine. And yet again, my brothers 
 will come, and they are many, and their maws 
 are never filled ; and the daughters of the 
 Raven shall bear children in the lodges of the 
 Wolf. My people are greater than thy peo 
 ple. It is destiny. Grant, and all this 
 wealth is thine." 
 
 Moccasins were crunching the snow with 
 out. Mackenzie threw his rifle to cock, and 
 loosened the twin Colts in his belt. 
 
 " Grant, Chief ! " 
 
 " And yet will my people say no." 
 
 " Grant, and the wealth is thine. Then 
 shall I deal with thy people after." 
 
 "The Wolf will have it so. I will take 
 his tokens, but I would warn him." 
 
 Mackenzie passed over the goods, taking 
 care to clog the rifle s ejector, and capping 
 the bargain with a T^aleidoscopic silk kerchief. 
 The Shaman and half a dozen young braves 
 entered, but he shouldered boldly among 
 them and passed out. 
 
 " Pack ! " was his laconic greeting to Za- 
 rinska as he passed her lodge and hurried to 
 harness his dogs. A few minutes later he 
 swept into the council at the head of the team, 
 
THE SON OF THE WOLF 35 
 
 the woman by his side. He took his place at 
 the upper end of the oblong, by the side of 
 the chief. To his left, a step to the rear, he 
 stationed Zarinska, her proper place. Be 
 sides, the time was ripe for mischief, and there 
 was need to guard his back. 
 
 On either side, the men crouched to the 
 fire, their voices lifted in a folk-chant out of 
 the forgotten past. Full of strange, halting 
 cadences and haunting recurrences, it was not 
 beautiful. " Fearful" may inadequately ex 
 press it. At the lower end, under the eye of 
 the Shaman, danced half a score of women. 
 Stern were his reproofs to those who did not 
 wholly abandon themselves to the ecstasy of 
 the rite. Half hidden in their heavy masses of 
 raven hair, all disheveled and falling to their 
 waists, they slowly swayed to and fro, their 
 forms rippling to an ever-changing rhythm. 
 
 It was a weird scene ; an anachronism. 
 To the south, the nineteenth century was 
 reeling off the few years of its last decade ; 
 here flourished man primeval, a shade re 
 moved from the prehistoric cave-dweller, a 
 forgotten fragment of the Elder World. The 
 tawny wolf-dogs sat between their skin-clad 
 masters or fought for room, the firelight cast 
 
36 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 backward from their red eyes and slavered 
 fangs. The woods, in ghostly shroud, slept 
 on unheeding. The White Silence, for the 
 moment driven to the rimming forest, seemed 
 ever crushing inward ; the stars danced with 
 great leaps, as is their wont in the time of 
 the Great Cold ; while the Spirits of the Pole 
 trailed their robes of glory athwart the hea 
 vens. 
 
 Scruff Mackenzie dimly realized the wild 
 grandeur of the setting as his eyes ranged 
 down the fur-fringed sides in quest of miss 
 ing faces. They rested for a moment on a 
 newborn babe, suckling at its mother s naked 
 breast. It was forty below, seventy and 
 odd degrees of frost. He thought of the ten 
 der women of his own race, and smiled grimly. 
 Yet from the loins of some such tender woman 
 had he sprung with a kingly inheritance, 
 an inheritance which gave to him and his dom 
 inance over the land and sea, over the ani 
 mals and the peoples of all the zones. Single- 
 handed against fivescore, girt by the Arctic 
 winter, far from his own, he felt the prompt 
 ing of his heritage, the desire to possess, 
 the wild danger-love, the thrill of battle, the 
 power to conquer or to die. 
 
THE SON OF THE WOLF 37 
 
 The singing and the dancing ceased, and 
 the Shaman flared up in rude eloquence. 
 Through the sinuosities of their vast my 
 thology, he worked cunningly upon the cre 
 dulity of his people. The case was strong. 
 Opposing the creative principles as embodied 
 in the Crow and the Raven, he stigmatized 
 Mackenzie as the Wolf, the fighting and the 
 destructive principle. Not only was the com 
 bat of these forces spiritual, but men fought, 
 each to his totem. They were the children 
 of Jelchs, the Kaven, the Promethean fire- 
 bringer ; Mackenzie was the child of the 
 Wolf, or, in other words, the Devil. For 
 them to bring a truce to this perpetual war 
 fare, to marry their daughters to the arch 
 enemy, were treason and blasphemy of the 
 highest order. No phrase was harsh, nor fig 
 ure vile, enough in branding Mackenzie as 
 a sneaking interloper and emissary of Satan. 
 There was a subdued, savage roar in the deep 
 chests of his listeners as he took the swing of 
 his peroration. 
 
 " Ay, my brothers, Jelchs is all-powerful ! 
 Did he not bring heaven-born fire that we 
 might be warm ? Did he not draw the sun, 
 moon, and stars from their holes that we 
 
38 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 might see ? Did lie not teach us that we 
 might fight the Spirits of Famine and of 
 Frost ? But now Jelchs is angry with his 
 children, and they are grown to a handful, 
 and he will not help. For they have forgot 
 ten him, and done evil things, and trod bad 
 trails, and taken his enemies into their lodges 
 to sit by their fires. And the Raven is sor 
 rowful at the wickedness of his children ; but 
 when they shall rise up and show they have 
 come back, he will come out of the darkness 
 to aid them. brothers ! the Fire-Bringer 
 has whispered messages to thy Shaman ; the 
 same shall ye hear. Let the young men take 
 the young women to their lodges ; let them 
 fly at the throat of the Wolf ; let them be 
 undying in their enmity ! Then shall their 
 women become fruitful, and they shall mul 
 tiply into a mighty people ! And the Raven 
 shall lead great tribes of their fathers and 
 their fathers fathers from out of the North ; 
 and they shall beat back the Wolves till they 
 are as last year s camp-fires ; and they shall 
 again come to rule over all the land ! T is 
 the message of Jelchs, the Raven." 
 
 This foreshadowing of the Messiah s com 
 ing brought a hoarse howl from the Sticks 
 
THE SON OF THE WOLF 39 
 
 as they leaped to their feet. Mackenzie 
 slipped the thumbs of his mittens, and waited. 
 There was a clamor for the Fox, not to be 
 stilled till one of the young men stepped for 
 ward to speak. 
 
 " Brothers ! The Shaman has spoken 
 wisely. The Wolves have taken our women, 
 and our men are childless. We are grown 
 to a handful. The Wolves have taken our 
 warm furs, and given for them evil spirits 
 which dwell in bottles, and clothes which 
 come not from the beaver or the lynx, but 
 are made from the grass. And they are not 
 warm, and our men die of strange sicknesses. 
 I, the Fox, have taken no woman to wife ; 
 and why? Twice have the maidens which 
 pleased me gone to the camps of the Wolf. 
 Even now have I laid by skins of the beaver, 
 of the moose, of the cariboo, that I might win 
 favor in the eyes of Thling-Tinneh, that I 
 might marry Zarinska, his daughter. Even 
 now are her snowshoes bound to her feet, 
 ready to break trail for the dogs of the Wolf. 
 Nor do I speak for myself alone. As I have 
 done, so has the Bear. He, too, had fain 
 been the father of her children, and many 
 skins has he cured thereto. I speak for all 
 
40 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 the young men who know not wives. The 
 Wolves are ever hungry. Always do they 
 take the choice meat at the killing. To the 
 Havens are left the leavings. 
 
 " There is Gugkla ! " he cried, brutally 
 pointing out one of the women, who was a 
 cripple. " Her legs are bent like the ribs 
 of a birch canoe. She cannot gather wood 
 nor carry the meat of the hunters. Did the 
 Wolves choose her ? " 
 
 " Ai ! ai ! " vociferated his tribesmen. 
 
 " There is Moyri, whose eyes are crossed 
 by the Evil Spirit. Even the babes are af 
 frighted when they gaze upon her, and it is 
 said the bald-face gives her the trail. Was 
 she chosen? " 
 
 Again the cruel applause rang out. 
 
 "And there sits Pischet. She does not 
 hearken to my words. Never has she heard 
 the cry of the chit-chat, the voice of her hus 
 band, the babble of her child. She lives in 
 the White Silence. Cared the Wolves aught 
 for her ? No ! Theirs is the choice of the 
 kill ; ours is the leavings. 
 
 " Brothers, it shall not be ! No more shall 
 the Wolves slink among our camp-fires. The 
 time is come." 
 
THE SON OF THE WOLF 41 
 
 A great streamer of fire, the aurora bore- 
 alis, purple, green, and yellow, shot across 
 the zenith, bridging horizon to horizon. 
 With head thrown back and arms extended, 
 he swayed to his climax. 
 
 " Behold ! The spirits of our fathers have 
 arisen and great deeds are afoot this night ! " 
 
 He stepped back, and another young man 
 somewhat diffidently came forward, pushed 
 on by his comrades. He towered a full 
 head above them, his broad chest defiantly 
 bared to the frost. He swung tentatively 
 from one foot to the other. Words halted 
 upon his tongue, and he was ill at ease. His 
 face was horrible to look upon, for it had 
 at one time been half torn away by some ter 
 rific blow. At last he struck his breast with 
 his clenched fist, drawing sound as from a 
 drum, and his voice rumbled forth as the 
 surf from an ocean cavern. 
 
 " I am the Bear, the Silver-Tip and the 
 Son of the Silver-Tip ! When my voice was 
 yet as a girl s, I slew the lynx, the moose, and 
 the cariboo ; when it whistled like the wol 
 verines from under a cache, I crossed the 
 Mountains of the South and slew three of 
 the White Rivers; when it became as the 
 
42 . THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 roar of the Chinook, I met the bald-faced 
 grizzly, but gave no trail." 
 
 At this he paused, his hand significantly 
 sweeping across his hideous scars. 
 
 " I am not as the Fox. My tongue is 
 frozen like the river. I cannot make great 
 talk. My words are few. The Fox says 
 great deeds are afoot this night. Good ! 
 Talk flows from his tongue like the freshets 
 of the spring, but he is chary of deeds. This 
 night shall I do battle with the Wolf. I shall 
 slay him, and Zarinska shall sit by my fire. 
 The Bear has spoken." 
 
 Though pandemonium raged about him, 
 Scruff Mackenzie held his ground. Aware 
 how useless was the rifle at close quarters, he 
 slipped both holsters to the fore, ready for 
 action, and drew his mittens till his hands 
 were barely shielded by the elbow gauntlets. 
 He knew there was no hope in attack en 
 masse, but true to his boast, was prepared to 
 die with teeth fast-locked. But the Bear re 
 strained his comrades, beating back the more 
 impetuous with his terrible fist. As the tu 
 mult began to die away, Mackenzie shot a 
 glance in the direction of Zarinska. It was 
 a superb picture. She was leaning forward 
 
THE SON OF THE WOLF 43 
 
 on her snowshoes, lips apart and nostrils 
 quivering, like a tigress about to spring. 
 Her great black eyes were fixed upon her 
 tribesmen, in fear and in defiance. So ex 
 treme the tension, she had forgotten to 
 breathe. With one hand pressed spasmod 
 ically against her breast and the other as 
 tightly gripped about the dogwhip, she was 
 as turned to stone. Even as he looked, relief 
 came to her. Her muscles loosened ; with a 
 heavy sigh she settled back, giving him a 
 look of more than love. 
 
 Thling-Tinneh was trying to speak, but his 
 people drowned his voice. Then Mackenzie 
 strode forward. The Fox opened mouth to a 
 piercing yell, but so savagely did Mackenzie 
 whirl upon him that he shrank back, his 
 larynx all a-gurgle with suppressed sound. 
 His discomfiture was greeted with roars of 
 laughter, and served to soothe his fellows to 
 a listening mood. 
 
 " Brothers ! The White Man, whom ye 
 have chosen to call the Wolf, came among 
 you with fair words. He was not like the 
 Innuit ; he spoke not lies. He came as a 
 friend, as one who would be a brother. But 
 your men have had their say, and the time 
 
44 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 for soft words is past. First, I will tell you 
 that the Shaman has an evil tongue and is a 
 false prophet, that the messages he spake are 
 not those of the Fire-Bringer. His ears are 
 locked to the voice of the Raven, and out of 
 his own head he weaves cunning fancies, and 
 he has made fools of you. He has no power. 
 When the dogs were killed and eaten, and 
 your stomachs were heavy with un tanned 
 hide and strips of moccasins ; when the old 
 men died, and the old women died, and the 
 babes at the dry dugs of the mothers died ; 
 when the land was dark, and ye perished as 
 do the salmon in the fall; ay, when the 
 famine was upon you, did the Shaman bring 
 reward to your hunters? did the Shaman put 
 meat in your bellies ? Again I say, the Sha 
 man is without power. Thus ! I spit upon his 
 face ! " 
 
 Though taken aback by the sacrilege, there 
 was no uproar. Some of the women were 
 even frightened, but among the men there 
 was an uplifting, as though in preparation or 
 anticipation of the miracle. All eyes were 
 turned upon the two central figures. The 
 priest realized the crucial moment, felt his 
 power tottering, opened his mouth in denun- 
 
THE SON OF THE WOLF 45 
 
 elation, but fled backward before the trucu 
 lent advance, upraised fist, and flashing eyes 
 of Mackenzie. He sneered and resumed. 
 
 " Was I stricken dead ? Did the lightning 
 burn me? Did the stars fall from the sky , 
 and crush me ? Pish ! I have done with the i 
 dog. Now will I tell you of my people, who j 
 are the mightiest of all the peoples, who rule 
 in all the lands. At first we hunt as I hunt, 
 alone. After that we hunt in packs ; and at 
 last, like the cariboo-run, we sweep across all 
 the land. Those whom we take into our 
 lodges live ; those who will not come die. 
 Zarinska is a comely maiden, full and strong, 
 fit to become the mother of Wolves. Though 
 I die, such shall she become ; for my brothers 
 are many, and they will follow the scent of 
 my dogs. Listen to the Law of the Wolf : 
 Whoso taketh the life of one Wolf, the for 
 feit shall ten of his people pay. In many 
 lands has the price been paid ; in many lands 
 shall it yet be paid. 
 
 "Now will I deal with the Fox and the 
 Bear. It seems they have cast eyes upon the 
 maiden. So ? Behold, I have bought her ! 
 Thling-Tinneh leans upon the rifle ; the goods 
 of purchase are by his fire. Yet will I be 
 
46 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 fair to the young men. To the Fox, whose 
 tongue is dry with many words, will I give of 
 tobacco five long plugs. Thus will his mouth 
 be wetted that he may make much noise in 
 the council. But to the Bear, of whom I 
 am well proud, will I give of blankets two ; 
 of flour, twenty cups ; of tobacco, double that 
 of the Fox ; and if he fare with me over the 
 Mountains of the East, then will I give him 
 a rifle, mate to Thling-Tinneh s. If not? 
 Good ! The Wolf is weary of speech. Yet 
 once again will he say the Law : Whoso tak- 
 eth the life of one Wolf, the forfeit shall ten 
 of his people, pay. 9 
 
 Mackenzie smiled as he stepped back to 
 his old position, but at heart he was full of 
 trouble. The night was yet dark. The girl 
 came to his side, and he listened closely as 
 she told of the Bear s battle-tricks with the 
 knife. 
 
 The decision was for war. In a trice, 
 scores of moccasins were widening the space 
 of beaten snow by the fire. There was much 
 chatter about the seeming defeat of the Sha 
 man ; some averred he had but withheld his 
 power, while others conned past events and 
 agreed with the Wolf. The Bear came to 
 
THE SON OF THE WOLF 47 
 
 the centre of the battle-ground, a long naked 
 hunting-knife of Russian make in his hand. 
 The Fox called attention to Mackenzie s re 
 volvers ; so he stripped his belt, buckling it 
 about Zarinska, into whose hands he also 
 intrusted his rifle. She shook her head that 
 she could not shoot, small chance had a 
 woman to handle such precious things. 
 
 " Then, if danger come by my back, cry 
 aloud, My husband ! No ; thus, My hus 
 band ! " 
 
 He laughed as she repeated it, pinched her 
 cheek, and reentered the circle. Not only in 
 reach and stature had the Bear the advantage 
 of him, but his blade was longer by a good 
 two inches. Scruff Mackenzie had looked 
 into the eyes of men before, and he knew it 
 was a man who stood against him ; yet he 
 quickened to the glint of light on the steel, 
 to the dominant pulse of his race. 
 
 Time and again he was forced to the edge 
 of the fire or the deep snow, and time and 
 again, with the foot tactics of the pugilist, 
 he worked back to the centre. Not a voice 
 was lifted in encouragement, while his antag 
 onist was heartened with applause, sugges 
 tions, and warnings. But his teeth only 
 
48 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 shut the tighter as the knives clashed to 
 gether, and he thrust or eluded with a cool 
 ness born of conscious strength. At first he 
 felt compassion for his enemy; but this fled 
 before the primal instinct of life, which in 
 turn gave way to the lust of slaughter. The 
 ten thousand years of culture fell from him, 
 and he was a cave-dweller, doing battle for 
 his female. 
 
 Twice he pricked the Bear, getting away 
 unscathed ; but the third time caught, and 
 to save himself, free hands closed on fighting 
 hands, and they came together. Then did 
 he realize the tremendous strength of his op 
 ponent. His muscles were knotted in pain 
 ful lumps, and cords and tendons threatened 
 to snap with the strain ; yet nearer and 
 nearer came the Kussian steel. He tried to 
 break away, but only weakened himself. The 
 fur-clad circle closed in, certain of and anx 
 ious to see the final stroke. But with wres 
 tler s trick, swinging partly to the side, he 
 struck at his adversary with his head. Invol 
 untarily the Bear leaned back, disturbing his 
 centre of gravity. Simultaneous with this, 
 Mackenzie tripped properly and threw his 
 whole weight forward, hurling him clear 
 
THE SON OF THE WOLF 49 
 
 through the circle into the deep snow. The 
 Bear floundered out and came back full tilt. 
 
 " my husband ! " Zarinska s voice rang 
 out, vibrant with danger. 
 
 To the twang of a bow-string, Mackenzie 
 swept low to the ground, and a bone-barbed 
 arrow passed over him into the breast of the 
 Bear, whose momentum carried him over his 
 crouching foe. The next instant Mackenzie 
 was up and about. The Bear lay motionless, 
 but across the fire was the Shaman, drawing 
 a second arrow. 
 
 Mackenzie s knife leaped short in the air. 
 He caught the heavy blade by the point. 
 There was a flash of light as it spanned the 
 fire. Then the Shaman, the hilt alone ap 
 pearing without his throat, swayed a mo 
 ment and pitched forward into the glowing 
 embers. 
 
 Click ! click ! the Fox had possessed him 
 self of Thling-Tinneh s rifle and was vainly 
 trying to throw a shell into place. But he 
 dropped it at the sound of Mackenzie s laugh 
 ter. 
 
 " So the Fox has not learned the way of 
 the plaything ? He is yet a woman. Come ! 
 Bring it, that I may show thee ! " 
 
50 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 The Fox hesitated. 
 
 " Come, I say ! " 
 
 He slouched forward like a beaten cur. 
 
 " Thus, and thus ; so the thing is done." 
 A shell flew into place and the trigger was at 
 cock as Mackenzie brought it to shoulder. 
 
 o 
 
 " The Fox has said great deeds were afoot 
 this night, and he spoke true. There have 
 been great deeds, yet least among them were 
 those of the Fox. Is he still intent to take 
 Zarinska to his lodge ? Is he minded to tread 
 the trail already broken by the Shaman and 
 the Bear? No? Good! 
 
 Mackenzie turned contemptuously and 
 drew his knife from the priest s throat. 
 
 " Are any of the young men so minded ? 
 If so, the Wolf will take them by two and 
 three till none are left. No ? Good ! Thling- 
 Tinneh, I now give thee this rifle a second 
 time. If in the days to come thou shouldst 
 journey to the Country of the Yukon, know 
 thou that there shall always be a place and 
 much food by the fire of the Wolf. The 
 night is now passing into the day. I go, but 
 I may come again. And for the last time, 
 remember the Law of the Wolf ! " 
 
 He was supernatural in their sight as he 
 
THE SON OF THE WOLF 51 
 
 rejoined Zarinska. She took her place at 
 the head of the team, and the dogs swung 
 into motion. A few moments later they were 
 swallowed up by the ghostly forest. Till now 
 Mackenzie had waited ; he slipped into his 
 snowshoes to follow. 
 
 "Has the Wolf forgotten the five long 
 plugs ? " 
 
 Mackenzie turned upon the Fox angrily ; 
 then the humor of it struck him. 
 
 " I will give thee one short plug." 
 
 " As the Wolf sees fit," meekly responded 
 the Fox, stretching out his hand. 
 
THE MEN OF FORTY-MILE 
 
 WHEN Big Jim Belden ventured the ap 
 parently innocuous proposition that mush-ice 
 was " rather pecooliar," he little dreamed of 
 what it would lead to. Neither did Lon Mc- 
 Fane, when he affirmed that anchor-ice was 
 even more so ; nor did Settles, as he instantly 
 disagreed, declaring the very existence of 
 such a form to be a bugaboo. 
 
 " An ye d be tellin me this," cried Lon, 
 " after the .years ye ve spint in the land ! 
 An we atin out the same pot this many s the 
 day ! " 
 
 " But the thing s agin reason," insisted 
 Settles. " Look you, water s warmer than 
 
 ice" 
 
 "An little the difference, once ye break 
 through." 
 
 " Still it s warmer, because it ain t froze. 
 An you say it freezes on the bottom ? " 
 
 " Only the anchor-ice, David, only the an 
 chor-ice. An have ye niver drifted along, 
 the water clear as glass, whin suddin, belike 
 
THE MEN OF FORTY-MILE 53 
 
 a cloud over the sun, the mushy ice comes 
 bubblin up an up, till from bank to bank 
 an bind to bind it s drapin the river like a 
 first snowfall ? " 
 
 " Unh hunh ! more n once when I took 
 a doze at the steering-oar. But it allus come 
 out the nighest side-channel, an not bubblin 
 up an up." 
 
 "But with niver a wink at the helm ? " 
 
 " No ; nor you. It s agin reason. I 11 
 leave it to any man ! " 
 
 Bettles appealed to the circle about the 
 stove, but the fight was on between himself 
 and Lon McFane. 
 
 " Reason or no reason, it s the truth I m 
 tellin ye. Last fall, a year gone, t was 
 Sitka Charley and meself saw the sight, drop- 
 pin down the riffle ye 11 remember below 
 Fort Reliance. An regular fall weather it 
 was, the glint o the sun on the golden 
 larch an the quakin aspens ; an the glister 
 of light on ivery ripple ; an beyand, the win 
 ter an the blue haze of the North comin 
 down hand in hand. It s well ye know the 
 same, with a fringe to the river an the ice 
 formin thick in the eddies, an a snap 
 an sparkle to the air, an ye a-feelin it 
 
54 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 through all yer blood, a-takin new lease of 
 life with ivery suck of it. T is then, me hoy, 
 the world grows small an the wandther-lust 
 lays ye by the heels. 
 
 " But it s meself as wandthers. As I was 
 sayin , we a-paddlin , with niver a sign of ice, 
 barrin that by the eddies, when the Injin 
 lifts his paddle an sings out, Lon McFane ! 
 Look ye below ! So have I heard, but niver 
 thought to see ! As ye know, Sitka Charley, 
 like meself, niver drew first breath in the 
 land ; so the sight was new. Then we drifted, 
 with a head over ayther side, peerin down 
 through the sparkly water. For the world 
 like the days I spint with the pearlers, 
 watchin the coral banks a-growin the same 
 as so many gardens under the sea. There it 
 was, the anchor-ice, clingin an* elusterin to 
 ivery rock, after the manner of the white 
 coral. 
 
 " But the best of the sight was to come. 
 Just after clearin the tail of the riffle, the 
 water turns quick the color of milk, an the 
 top of it in wee circles, as when the graylin 
 rise in the spring or there s a splatter of wet 
 from the sky. T was the anchor-ice comin 
 up. To the right, to the lift, as far as iver 
 
THE MEN OF FORTY-MILE 55 
 
 a man cud see, the water was covered with 
 the same. An like so much porridge it was, 
 slickin along the bark o the canoe, stickin 
 like glue to the paddles. It s many s the 
 time I shot the selfsame riffle before, and it s 
 many s the time after, but niver a wink of 
 the same have I seen. T was the sight of a 
 lifetime." 
 
 " Do tell ! " dryly commented Bettles. "D J 
 ye think I d b lieve such a yarn ? I d ruther 
 say the glister of light d gone to your eyes, 
 and the snap of the air to your tongue." 
 
 " J T was me own eyes that beheld it, an if 
 Sitka Charley was here, he d be the lad to 
 back me." 
 
 " But facts is facts, an they ain t no gittin 
 round em. It ain t in the nature of things 
 for the water furtherest away from the air to 
 freeze first." 
 
 " But me own eyes " 
 
 " Don t git het up over it," admonished Bet- 
 ties, as the quick Celtic anger began to mount. 
 
 " Then yer not after belavin me ? " 
 
 " Sence you re so blamed forehanded about 
 it, no ; I d b lieve nature first, and facts." 
 
 " Is it the lie ye d be givin me ? " threat 
 ened Lon. " Ye d better be askin that Siwash 
 
56 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 wife of yours. I 11 lave it to her, for the 
 truth I spake." 
 
 Bettles flared up in sudden wrath. The 
 Irishman had unwittingly wounded him ; for 
 his wife was the half-breed daughter of a 
 Russian fur-trader, married to him in the 
 Greek Mission of Nulato, a thousand miles 
 or so down the Yukon, thus being of much 
 higher caste than the common Siwash, or na 
 tive, wife. It was a mere Northland nuance, 
 which none but the Northland adventurer 
 may understand. 
 
 " I reckon you kin take it that way," was 
 his deliberate affirmation. 
 
 The next instant Lon McFane had stretched 
 him on the floor, the circle was broken up, 
 and half a dozen men had stepped between. 
 
 Bettles came to his feet, wiping the blood 
 from his mouth. " It hain t new, this takin 
 and payin of blows, and don t you never 
 think but that this will be squared." 
 
 " An niver in me life did I take the lie 
 from mortal man," was the retort courteous. 
 " An it s an avil day I 11 not be to hand, 
 waitin an willin to help ye lift yer debts, 
 barrin no manner of way." 
 
 " Still got that 38-55 ? " 
 
THE MEN OF FORTY-MILE 57 
 
 Lon nodded. 
 
 " But you d better git a more likely cali 
 bre. Mine 11 rip holes through you the size 
 of walnuts." 
 
 " Niver fear ; it s me own slugs smell their 
 way with soft noses, an they ll spread like 
 flapjacks against the coming out beyand. 
 An when 11 I have the pleasure of waitin on 
 ye ? The water-hole s a strikin locality." 
 
 " T ain t bad. Jest be there in an hour, 
 and you won t set long on my coming." 
 
 Both men mittened and left the Post, their 
 ears closed to the remonstrances of their 
 comrades. It was such a little thing ; yet 
 with such men, little things, nourished by 
 quick tempers and stubborn natures, soon 
 blossomed into big things. Besides, the art 
 of burning to bed-rock still lay in the womb 
 of the future, and the men of Forty-Mile, 
 shut in by the long Arctic winter, grew high- 
 stomached with over-eating and enforced idle 
 ness, and became as irritable as do the bees 
 in the fall of the year when the hives are 
 overstocked with honey. 
 
 There was no law in the land. The 
 Mounted Police was also a thing of the 
 future. Each man measured an offense and 
 
58 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 meted out the punishment in as much as it 
 affected himself. Rarely had combined action 
 been necessary, and never in all the dreary 
 history of the camp had the eighth article of 
 the Decalogue been violated. 
 
 Big Jim Belden called an impromptu meet 
 ing. Scruff Mackenzie was placed as tempo 
 rary chairman, and a messenger dispatched to 
 solicit Father Roubeau s good offices. Their 
 position was paradoxical, and they knew it. 
 By the right of might could they interfere 
 to prevent the duel ; yet such action, while 
 in direct line with their wishes, went counter 
 to their opinions. While their rough-hewn, 
 obsolete ethics recognized the individual pre 
 rogative of wiping out blow with blow, they 
 could not bear to think of two good com 
 rades, such as Settles and McFane, meeting 
 in deadly battle. Deeming the man who 
 would not fight on provocation a dastard, 
 when brought to the test it seemed wrong 
 that he should fight. 
 
 But a scurry of moccasins and loud cries, 
 rounded off with a pistol-shot, interrupted 
 the discussion. Then the storm-doors opened 
 and Malemute Kid entered, a smoking Colt s 
 in his hand and a merry light in his eye. 
 
THE MEN OF FORTY-MILE 59 
 
 " I got him." He replaced the empty shell, 
 and added, " Your dog, Scruff." 
 
 " Yellow Fang ? " Mackenzie asked. 
 
 " No ; the lop-eared one." 
 
 " The devil ! Nothing the matter with 
 him." 
 
 " Come out and take a look." 
 
 "That s all right, after all. Guess he s 
 got em, too. Yellow Fang came back this 
 morning and took a chunk out of him, and 
 came near to making a widower of me. 
 Made a rush for Zarinska, but she whisked 
 her skirts in his face and escaped with the 
 loss of the same and a good roll in the snow. 
 Then he took to the woods again. Hope he 
 don t come back. Lost any yourself ? " 
 
 " One the best one of the pack Shoo- 
 kum. Started amuck this morning, but 
 did n t get very far. Ean foul of Sitka 
 Charley s team, and they scattered him all 
 over the street. And now two of them are 
 loose and raging mad ; so you see he got his 
 work in. The dog census will be small in the 
 spring if we don t do something." 
 
 " And the man census, too." 
 
 " How s that ? Whose in trouble now ? " 
 
 " Oh, Bettles and Lon McFane had an ar- 
 
60 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 gument, and they 11 be down by the water- 
 hole in a few minutes to settle it." 
 
 The incident was repeated for his benefit, 
 and Malemute Kid, accustomed to an obedi 
 ence which his fellow men never failed to ren 
 der, took charge of the affair. His quickly 
 formulated plan was explained, and they pro 
 mised to follow his lead implicitly. 
 
 " So you see," he concluded, " we do not 
 actually take away their privilege of fighting ; 
 and yet I don t believe they 11 fight when 
 they see the beauty of the scheme. Life s a 
 game, and men the gamblers. They 11 stake 
 their whole pile on the one chance in a thou 
 sand. Take away that one chance, and 
 they won t play." 
 
 He turned to the man in charge of the 
 Post. "Storekeeper, weigh out three fath 
 oms of your best half -inch manila." 
 
 " We 11 establish a precedent which will 
 last the men of Forty-Mile to the end of 
 time," he prophesied. Then he coiled the 
 rope about his arm and led his followers out 
 of doors, just in time to meet the principals. 
 
 "What danged right d he to fetch my 
 wife in?" thundered Bettles to the soothing 
 overtures of a friend. " T wa n t called 
 
THE MEN OF FORTY-MILE 61 
 
 for/ he concluded decisively. " T wa n t 
 called for," he reiterated again and again, 
 pacing up and down and waiting for Lon 
 McFane. 
 
 And Lon McFane his face was hot and 
 tongue rapid as he flaunted insurrection in 
 the face of the Church. " Then, father/ he 
 cried, " it s with an aisy heart I 11 roll in me 
 flamy blankets, the broad of me ^ack on a 
 bed of coals. Niver shall it be said Lon Mc 
 Fane took a lie twixt the teeth without iver 
 liftin a hand ! An I 11 not ask a blessin . 
 The years have been wild, but it s the heart 
 was in the right place." 
 
 " But it s not the heart, Lon," interposed 
 Father Koubeau ; " it s pride that bids you 
 forth to slay your fellow man." 
 
 "Yer Frinch," Lon replied. And then, 
 turning to leave him, " An will ye say a mass 
 if the luck is against me ? " 
 
 But the priest smiled, thrust his moccasined 
 feet to the fore, and went out upon the white 
 breast of the silent river. A packed trail, 
 the width of a sixteen-inch sled, led out to the 
 water-hole. On either side lay the deep, soft 
 snow. The men trod in single file, without 
 conversation ; and the black-stoled priest in 
 
62 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 their midst gave to the function the solemn 
 aspect of a funeral. It was a warm winter s 
 day for Forty-Mile, a day in which the sky, 
 filled with heaviness, drew closer to the earth, 
 and the mercury sought the unwonted level 
 of twenty below. But there was no cheer in 
 the warmth. There was little air in the upper 
 strata, and the clouds hung motionless, giving 
 sullen promise of an early snowfall. And the 
 earth, unresponsive, made no preparation, 
 content in its hibernation. 
 
 When the water-hole was reached, Bettles, 
 having evidently reviewed the quarrel during 
 the silent walk, burst out in a final " T wa n t 
 called for," while Lon McFane kept grim 
 silence. Indignation so choked him that he 
 could not speak. 
 
 Yet deep down, whenever their own wrongs 
 were not uppermost, both men wondered at 
 their comrades. They had expected opposi 
 tion, and this tacit acquiescence hurt them. 
 It seemed more was due them from the men 
 they had been so close with, and they felt a 
 vague sense of wrong, rebelling at the thought 
 of so many of their brothers coming out, as 
 on a gala occasion, without one word of pro 
 test, to see them shoot each other down. It 
 
THE MEN OF FORTY-MILE 63 
 
 appeared their worth had diminished in the 
 eyes of the community. The proceedings 
 puzzled them. 
 
 "Back to back, David. An will it be 
 fifty paces to the man, or double the quan 
 tity? " 
 
 " Fifty/ was the sanguinary reply, grunted 
 out, yet sharply cut. 
 
 But the new manila, not prominently dis 
 played but casually coiled about Malemute 
 Kid s arm, caught the quick eye of the Irish 
 man and thrilled him with a suspicious fear. 
 
 " An what are ye doin with the rope ? " 
 
 " Hurry up ! " Malemute Kid glanced at 
 his watch. " I ve a batch of bread in the 
 cabin, and I don t want it to fall. Besides, 
 my feet are getting cold." 
 
 The rest of the men manifested their im 
 patience in various suggestive ways. 
 
 " But the rope, Kid ? It s bran new, an 
 sure yer bread s not that heavy it needs 
 raisin with the like of that ? " 
 
 Settles by this time had faced around. 
 Father Roubeau, the humor of the situation 
 just dawning on him, hid a smile behind his 
 mittened hand. 
 
 " No, Lon ; this rope was made for a man." 
 
64 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 Malemute Kid could be very impressive on 
 occasion. 
 
 " What man ? " Bettles was becoming 
 aware of a personal interest. 
 
 " The other man." 
 
 " An which is the one ye d mane by that ? " 
 
 " Listen, Lon, and you, too, Bettles ! 
 We ve been talking this little trouble of yours 
 over, and we ve come to one conclusion. We 
 know we have no right to stop your fight- 
 ing"- 
 
 " True for ye, me lad ! " 
 
 " And we re not going to. But this much 
 we can do, and shall do, make this the only 
 duel in the history of Forty-Mile, set an ex 
 ample for every che-cha-qua that comes up 
 or down the Yukon. The man who escapes 
 killing shall be hanged to the nearest tree. 
 Now, go ahead ! " 
 
 Lon smiled dubiously, then his face lighted 
 up. " Pace her off, David, fifty paces, 
 wheel, an* niver a cease firin till a lad s down 
 for good. T is their hearts 11 niver let them 
 do the deed, an it s well ye should know it 
 for a true Yankee bluff." 
 
 He started off with a pleased grin on his 
 face, but Malemute Kid halted him. 
 
THE MEN OF FORTY-MILE 65 
 
 " Lon ! It s a long while since you first 
 knew me ? " 
 
 " Many s the day." 
 
 " And you, Bettles ? " 
 
 " Five year next June high water." 
 
 " And have you once, in all that time, 
 known me to break my word ? Or heard of 
 me breaking it ? " 
 
 Both men shook their heads, striving to 
 fathom what lay beyond. 
 
 " Well, then, what do you think of a pro 
 mise made by me ? " 
 
 " As good as your bond," from Bettles. 
 
 " The thing to safely sling yer hopes of 
 heaven by," promptly indorsed Lon McFane. 
 
 " Listen ! I, Malemute Kid, give you my 
 word and you know what that means 
 that the man who is not shot stretches rope 
 within ten minutes after the shooting." He 
 stepped back as Pilate might have done after 
 washing his hands. 
 
 A pause and a silence came over the men 
 of Forty-Mile. The sky drew still closer, 
 sending down a crystal flight of frost, 
 little geometric designs, perfect, evanescent as 
 a breath, yet destined to exist till the return 
 ing sun had covered half its northern journey. 
 
66 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 Both men had led forlorn hopes in their time, 
 led, with a curse or a jest on their tongues, 
 and in their souls an unswerving faith in the 
 
 o 
 
 God of Chance. But that merciful deity had 
 been shut out from the present deal. They 
 studied the face of Malemute Kid, but they 
 studied as one might the Sphinx. As the 
 quiet minutes passed, a feeling that speech 
 was incumbent on them began to grow. At 
 last the howl of a wolf-dog cracked the si 
 lence from the direction of Forty-Mile. The 
 weird sound swelled with all the pathos of a 
 breaking heart, then died away in a long- 
 drawn sob. 
 
 " Well I be danged ! " Bettles turned up 
 the collar of his mackinaw jacket and stared 
 about him helplessly. 
 
 " It s a gloryus game yer runnin , Kid," 
 cried Lon McFane. " All the percentage to 
 the house an niver a bit to the man that s 
 buckin . The Devil himself d niver tackle 
 such a cinch and damned if I do." 
 
 There were chuckles, throttled in gurgling 
 throats, and winks brushed away with the 
 frost which rimed the eyelashes, as the men 
 climbed the ice-notched bank and started 
 across the street to the Post. But the long 
 
THE MEN OF FORTY-MILE 67 
 
 howl had drawn nearer, invested with a new 
 note of menace. A woman screamed round 
 the corner. There was a cry of, " Here he 
 comes ! " Then an Indian boy, at the head 
 of half a dozen frightened dogs, racing with 
 death, dashed into the crowd. And behind 
 came Yellow Fang, a bristle of hair and a 
 flash of gray. Everybody but the Yankee 
 fled. The Indian boy had tripped and fallen. 
 Bettles stopped long enough to grip him by 
 the slack of his furs, then headed for a pile 
 of cordwood already occupied by a number of 
 his comrades. Yellow Fang, doubling after 
 one of the dogs, came leaping back. The 
 fleeing animal, free of the rabies but crazed 
 with fright, whipped Bettles off his feet and 
 flashed on up the street. Malemute Kid took 
 a flying shot at Yellow Fang. The mad 
 dog whirled a half airspring, came down on 
 his back, then, with a single leap, covered 
 half the distance between himself and Bet- 
 ties. 
 
 But the fatal spring was intercepted. Lon 
 McFane leaped from the woodpile, counter 
 ing him in midair. Over they rolled, Lon 
 holding him by the throat at arm s length, 
 blinking under the fetid slaver which sprayed 
 
68 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 his face. Then Settles, revolver in hand and 
 coolly waiting a chance, settled the combat. 
 
 66 T was a square game, Kid," Lon re 
 marked, rising to his feet and shaking the 
 snow from out his sleeves ; " with a fair per 
 centage to meself that bucked it." 
 
 That night, while Lon McFane sought the 
 forgiving arms of the Church in the direction 
 of Father Roubeau s cabin, Malemute Kid and 
 Scruff Mackenzie talked long to little pur 
 pose. 
 
 "But would you," persisted Mackenzie, 
 " supposing they had fought ? " 
 
 " Have I ever broken my word ? " 
 
 " No ; but that is n t the point. Answer 
 the question. Would you ? " 
 
 Malemute Kid straightened up. " Scruff, 
 I ve been asking myself that question ever 
 since, and " 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Well, as yet, I have n t found the an 
 
 swer." 
 
IN A FAR COUNTRY 
 
 WHEN a man journeys into a far country, 
 he must be prepared to forget many of the 
 things he has learned, and to acquire such 
 customs as are inherent with existence in the 
 new land ; he must abandon the old ideals 
 and the old gods, and oftentimes he must 
 reverse the very codes by which his conduct 
 has hitherto been shaped. To those who 
 have the protean faculty of adaptability, the 
 novelty of such change may even be a source 
 of pleasure ; but to those who happen to be 
 hardened to the ruts in which they were cre 
 ated, the pressure of the altered environment 
 is unbearable, and they chafe in body and in 
 spirit under the new restrictions which they 
 do not understand. This chafing is bound to 
 act and react, producing divers evils and lead 
 ing to various misfortunes. It were better 
 for the man who cannot fit himself to the 
 new groove to return to his own country ; if 
 he delay too long, he will surely die. 
 
 The man who turns his back upon the 
 
70 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 comforts of an elder civilization, to face the 
 savage youth, the primordial simplicity of the 
 North, may estimate success at an inverse 
 ratio to the quantity and quality of his hope 
 lessly fixed habits. He will soon discover, if 
 he be a fit candidate, that the material habits 
 are the less important. The exchange of such 
 things as a dainty menu for rough fare, of 
 the stiff leather shoe for the soft, shapeless 
 moccasin, of the feather bed for a couch in 
 the snow, is after all a very easy matter. But 
 his pinch will come in learning properly to 
 shape his mind s attitude toward all things, 
 and especially toward his fellow man. For the 
 courtesies of ordinary life, he must substi 
 tute unselfishness, forbearance, and tolerance. 
 Thus, and thus only, can he gain that pearl 
 of great price, true comradeship. He must 
 not say " Thank you ; " he must mean it with 
 out opening his mouth, and prove it by re 
 sponding in kind. In short, he must substi 
 tute the deed for the word, the spirit for the 
 letter. 
 
 When the world rang with the tale of 
 Arctic gold, and the lure of the North 
 gripped the heartstrings of men, Carter 
 Weatherbee threw up his snug clerkship, 
 
IN A FAR COUNTRY 71 
 
 turned the half of his savings over to his 
 wife, and with the remainder bought an out 
 fit. There was no romance in his nature, 
 the bondage of commerce had crushed all 
 that; he was simply tired of the ceaseless 
 grind, and wished to risk great hazards in 
 view of corresponding returns. Like many 
 another fool, disdaining the old trails used 
 by the Northland pioneers for a score of 
 years, he hurried to Edmonton in the spring 
 of the year ; and there, unluckily for his 
 soul s welfare, he allied himself with a party 
 of men. 
 
 There was nothing unusual about this 
 party, except its plans. Even its goal, like 
 that of all other parties, was the Klondike. 
 But the route it had mapped out to attain 
 that goal took away the breath of the hardi 
 est native, born and bred to the vicissitudes 
 of the Northwest. Even Jacques Baptiste, 
 born of a Chippewa woman and a renegade 
 voyageur (having raised his first whimpers 
 in a deerskin lodge north of the sixty-fifth 
 parallel, and had the same hushed by blissful 
 sucks of raw tallow), was surprised. Though 
 he sold his services to them and agreed to 
 travel even to the never-opening ice, he shook 
 
72 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 his head ominously whenever his advice was 
 asked. 
 
 Percy Cuthfert s evil star must have been 
 in the ascendant, for he, too, joined this com 
 pany of argonauts. He was an ordinary man, 
 with a bank account as deep as his culture, 
 which is saying a good deal. He had no rea 
 son to embark on such a venture, no reason 
 in the world, save that he suffered from an 
 abnormal development of sentimentality. He 
 mistook this for the true spirit of romance 
 and adventure. Many another man has done 
 the like, and made as fatal a mistake. 
 
 The first break-up of spring found the 
 party following the ice-run of Elk Kiver. It 
 was an imposing fleet, for the outfit was large, 
 and they were accompanied by a disreputable 
 contingent of half-breed voyarjeurs with their 
 women and children. Day in and day out, 
 they labored with the bateaux and canoes, 
 fought mosquitoes and other kindred pests, 
 or sweated and swore at the portages. Severe 
 toil like this lays a man naked to the very 
 roots of his soul, and ere Lake Athabasca was 
 lost in the south, each member of the party 
 had hoisted his true colors. 
 
 The two shirks and chronic grumblers were 
 
IN A FAR COUNTRY 73 
 
 Carter Weatherbee and Percy Cuthfert. The 
 whole party complained less of its aches and 
 pains than did either of them. Not once did 
 they volunteer for the thousand and one petty 
 duties of the camp. A bucket of water to 
 be brought, an extra armful of wood to be 
 chopped, the dishes to be washed and wiped, 
 a search to be made through the outfit for 
 some suddenly indispensable article, and 
 these two effete scions of civilization discovered 
 sprains or blisters requiring instant attention. 
 They were the first to turn in at night, with a 
 score of tasks yet undone ; the last to turn 
 out in the morning, when the start should be 
 in readiness before the breakfast was begun. 
 They were the first to fall to at meal-time, the 
 last to have a hand in the cooking ; the first 
 to dive for a slim delicacy, the last to discover 
 they had added to their own another man s 
 share. If they toiled at the oars, they slyly 
 cut the water at each stroke and allowed the 
 boat s momentum to float up the blade. They 
 thought nobody noticed ; but their comrades 
 swore under their breaths and grew to hate 
 them, while Jacques Baptiste sneered openly 
 and damned them from morning till night. 
 But Jacques Baptiste was no gentleman. 
 
74 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 At the Great Slave, Hudson Bay dogs were 
 purchased, and the fleet sank to the guards 
 with its added burden of dried fish and pem- 
 mican. Then canoe and bateau answered to 
 the swift current of the Mackenzie, and they 
 plunged into the Great Barren Ground. Every 
 likely-looking " feeder " was prospected, but 
 the elusive " pay-dirt " danced ever to the 
 north. At the Great Bear, overcome by the 
 common dread of the Unknown Lands, their 
 voyacjeurs began to desert, and Fort of Good 
 Hope saw the last and bravest bending to the 
 tow-lines as they bucked the current down 
 which they had so treacherously glided. 
 Jacques Baptiste alone remained. Had he 
 not sworn to travel even to the never-opening 
 ice? 
 
 The lying charts, compiled in main from 
 hearsay, were now constantly consulted. And 
 they felt the need of hurry, for the sun had 
 already passed its northern solstice and was 
 leading the winter south again. Skirting the 
 shores of the bay, where the Mackenzie dis 
 embogues into the Arctic Ocean, they entered 
 the mouth of the Little Peel River. Then be 
 gan the arduous up-stream toil, and the two 
 Incapables fared worse than ever. Tow-line 
 
IN A FAR COUNTRY 75 
 
 and pole, paddle and tump-line, rapids and 
 portages, such tortures served to give the 
 one a deep disgust for great hazards, and 
 printed for the other a fiery text on the true 
 romance of adventure. One day they waxed 
 mutinous, and being vilely cursed by Jacques 
 Baptiste, turned, as worms sometimes will. 
 But the half-breed thrashed the twain, and 
 sent them, bruised and bleeding, about their 
 work. It was the first time either had been 
 man-handled. 
 
 Abandoning their river craft at the head 
 waters of the Little Peel, they consumed the 
 rest of the summer in the great portage over 
 the Mackenzie watershed to the West Rat. 
 This little stream fed the Porcupine, which in 
 turn joined the Yukon where that mighty 
 highway of the North countermarches on the 
 Arctic Circle. But they had lost in the race 
 with winter, and one day they tied their rafts 
 to the thick eddy-ice and hurried their goods 
 ashore. That night the river jammed and 
 broke several times ; the following morning 
 it had fallen asleep for good. 
 
 " We can t be more n four hundred miles 
 from the Yukon," concluded Sloper, multiply- 
 
76 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 ing his thumb nails by the scale of the map. 
 The council, in which the two Incapables had 
 whined to excellent disadvantage, was drawing 
 to a close. 
 
 " Hudson Bay Post, long time ago. No 
 use um now." Jacques Baptiste s father had 
 made the trip for the Fur Company in the old 
 days, incidentally marking the trail with a 
 couple of frozen toes. 
 
 " Suiferin cracky ! " cried another of the 
 party. " No whites ? " 
 
 " Nary white," Sloper sententiously af 
 firmed ; " but it s only five hundred more up 
 the Yukon to Dawson. Call it a rough thou 
 sand from here." 
 
 Weatherbee andCuthfert groaned in chorus. 
 
 " How long 11 that take, Baptiste ? " 
 
 The half-breed figured for a moment. 
 " Workum like hell, no man play out, ten 
 twenty forty fifty days. Um babies 
 come " (designating the Incapables), " no can 
 tell. Mebbe when hell freeze over ; mebbe 
 not then." 
 
 The manufacture of snowshoes and mocca 
 sins ceased. Somebody called the name of 
 an absent member, who came out of an ancient 
 cabin at the edge of the camp-fire and joined 
 
IN A FAR COUNTRY 77 
 
 them. The cabin was one of the many mys 
 teries which lurk in the vast recesses of the 
 North. Built when and by whom, no man 
 could tell. Two graves in the open, piled 
 high with stones, perhaps contained the secret 
 of those early wanderers. But whose hand 
 had piled the stones? 
 
 The moment had come. Jacques Baptiste 
 paused in the fitting of a harness and pinned 
 the struggling dog in the snow. The cook 
 made mute protest for delay, threw a handful 
 of bacon into a noisy pot of beans, then came 
 to attention. Sloper rose to his feet. His 
 body was a ludicrous contrast to the healthy 
 physiques of the Incapables. Yellow and 
 weak, fleeing from a South American fever- 
 hole, he had not broken his flight across the 
 zones, and was still able to toil with men. 
 His weight was probably ninety pounds, with 
 the heavy hunting-knife thrown in, and his 
 grizzled hair told of a prime which had ceased 
 to be. The fresh young muscles, of either 
 Weatherbee or Cuthfert were equal to ten 
 times the endeavor of his ; yet he could walk 
 them into the earth in a day s journey. And 
 all this day he had whipped his stronger com 
 rades into venturing a thousand miles of the 
 
78 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 stiffest hardship man can conceive. He was 
 the incarnation of the unrest of his race, and 
 the old Teutonic stubbornness, dashed with 
 the quick grasp and action of the Yankee, 
 held the flesh in the bondage of the spirit. 
 
 " All those in favor of going on with the 
 dogs as soon as the ice sets, say ay." 
 
 " Ay ! " rang out eight voices, voices de 
 stined to string a trail of oaths along many a 
 hundred miles of pain. 
 
 "Contrary minded?" 
 
 " No ! " For the first time the Incapables 
 were united without some compromise of per 
 sonal interests. 
 
 " And what are you going to do about it ? " 
 Weatherbee added belligerently. 
 
 " Majority rule ! Majority rule ! " clamored 
 the rest of the party. 
 
 "I know the expedition is liable to fall 
 through if you don t come," Sloper replied 
 sweetly ; " but I guess, if we try real hard, 
 we can manage to do without you. What do 
 you say, boys ? " 
 
 The sentiment was cheered to the echo. 
 
 " But I say, you know," Cuthfert ventured 
 apprehensively ; " what s a chap like me to 
 do?" 
 
IN A FAR COUNTRY 79 
 
 " Ain t you coming with us ? " 
 
 "No-o." 
 
 " Then do as you damn well please. We 
 won t have nothing to say." 
 
 " Kind o calkilate yuh might settle it with 
 that canoodlin pardner of yourn," suggested 
 a heavy-going Westerner from the Dakotas, 
 at the same time pointing out Weatherbee. 
 " He 11 be shore to ask yuh what yur a-goin 
 to do when it comes to cookin an gatherin 
 the wood." 
 
 " Then we 11 consider it all arranged," con 
 cluded Sloper. " We 11 pull out to-morrow, 
 if we camp within five miles, just to get 
 everything in running order and remember if 
 we ve forgotten anything." 
 
 The sleds groaned by on their steel-shod 
 runners, and the dogs strained low in the 
 harnesses in which they were born to die. 
 Jacques Baptiste paused by the side of Sloper 
 to get a last glimpse of the cabin. The smoke 
 curled up pathetically from the Yukon stove 
 pipe. The two Incapables were watching 
 them from the doorway. 
 
 Sloper laid his hand on the other s shoul 
 der. 
 
80 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 "Jacques Baptiste, did you ever hear of 
 the Kilkenny cats? " 
 
 The half-breed shook his head. 
 
 " Well, my friend and good comrade, the 
 Kilkenny cats fought till neither hide, nor 
 hair, nor yowl, was left. You understand? 
 till nothing was left. Very good. Now, 
 these two men don t like work. They won t 
 work. We know that. They 11 be all alone 
 in that cabin all winter, a mighty long, 
 dark winter. Kilkenny cats, well ? " 
 
 The Frenchman in Baptiste shrugged his 
 shoulders, but the Indian in him was silent. 
 Nevertheless, it was an eloquent shrug, preg 
 nant with prophecy. 
 
 Things prospered in the little cabin at first. 
 The rough badinage of their comrades had 
 made Weatherbee and Cuthfert conscious of 
 the mutual responsibility which had devolved 
 upon them ; besides, there was not so much 
 work after all for two healthy men. And the 
 removal of the cruel whip-hand, or in other 
 words the bulldozing half-breed, had brought 
 with it a joyous reaction. At first, each strove 
 to outdo the other, and they performed petty 
 tasks with an unction which would have 
 
IN A FAR COUNTRY 81 
 
 opened the eyes of their comrades who were 
 now wearing out bodies and souls on the 
 Long Trail. 
 
 All care was banished. The forest, which 
 shouldered in upon them from three sides, 
 was an inexhaustible woodyard. A few 
 yards from their door slept the Porcupine, 
 and a hole through its winter robe formed a 
 bubbling spring of water, crystal clear and 
 painfully cold. But they soon grew to find 
 fault with even that. The hole would persist 
 in freezing up, and thus gave them many a 
 miserable hour of ice-chopping. The un 
 known builders of the cabin had extended 
 the side-logs so as to support a cache at the 
 rear. In this was stored the bulk of the party s 
 provisions. Food there was, without stint, for 
 three times the men who were fated to live 
 upon it. But the most of it was of the kind 
 which built up brawn and sinew, but did not 
 tickle the palate. True, there was sugar in 
 plenty for two ordinary men ; but these two 
 were little else than children. They early 
 discovered the virtues of hot water judi 
 ciously saturated with sugar, and they prodi 
 gally swam their flapjacks and soaked their 
 crusts in the rich, white syrup. Then coffee 
 
82 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 and tea, and especially the dried fruits, made 
 disastrous inroads upon it. The first words 
 they had were over the sugar question. And 
 it is a really serious thing when two men, 
 wholly dependent upon each other for com 
 pany, begin to quarrel. 
 
 Weatherbee loved to discourse blatantly 
 on politics, while Cuthfert, who had been 
 prone to clip his coupons and let the com 
 monwealth jog on as best it might, either 
 ignored the subject or delivered himself of 
 startling epigrams. But the clerk was too 
 obtuse to appreciate the clever shaping of 
 thought, and this waste of ammunition irri 
 tated Cuthfert. He had been used to blind 
 ing people by his brilliancy, and it worked 
 him quite a hardship, this loss of an audience. 
 He felt personally aggrieved and uncon 
 sciously held his mutton-head companion re 
 sponsible for it. 
 
 Save existence, they had nothing in com 
 mon, came in touch on no single point. 
 Weatherbee was a clerk who had known 
 naught but clerking all his life ; Cuthfert 
 was a master of arts, a dabbler in oils, and 
 had written not a little. The one was a 
 lower-class man who considered himself a 
 
IN A FAR COUNTRY 83 
 
 gentleman, and the other was a gentleman 
 who knew himself to be such. From this it 
 may be remarked that a man can be a gentle 
 man without possessing the first instinct of 
 true comradeship. The clerk was as sensu 
 ous as the other was assthetic, and his love 
 adventures, told at great length and chiefly 
 coined from his imagination, affected the 
 supersensitive master of arts in the same way 
 as so many whiffs of sewer gas. He deemed 
 the clerk a filthy, uncultured brute, whose 
 place was in the muck with the swine, and 
 told him so ; and he was reciprocally informed 
 that he was a milk-and-water sissy and a cad. 
 Weatherbee could not have defined "cad" 
 for his life ; but it satisfied its purpose, which 
 after all seems the main point in life. 
 
 Weatherbee flatted every third note and 
 sang such songs as " The Boston Burglar " 
 and " The Handsome Cabin Boy," for hours 
 at a time, while Cuthfert wept with rage, till 
 he could stand it no longer and fled into the 
 outer cold. But there was no escape. The 
 intense frost could not be endured for long 
 at a time, and the little cabin crowded them 
 beds, stove, table, and all into a space 
 of ten by twelve. The very presence of 
 
84 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 either became a personal affront to the other, 
 and they lapsed into sullen silences which 
 increased in length and strength as the days 
 went by. Occasionally, the flash of an eye 
 or the curl of a lip got the better of them, 
 though they strove to wholly ignore each 
 other during these mute periods. And a 
 great wonder sprang up in the breast of 
 each, as to how God had ever coine to cre 
 ate the other. 
 
 With little to do, time became an intoler 
 able burden to them. This naturally made 
 them still lazier. They sank into a physical 
 lethargy which there was no escaping, and 
 which made them rebel at the performance 
 of the smallest chore. One morning when it 
 was his turn to cook the common breakfast, 
 Weatherbee rolled out of his blankets, and 
 to the snoring of his companion, lighted first 
 the slush-lamp and then the fire. The kettles 
 were frozen hard, and there was no water in 
 the cabin with which to wash. But he did 
 not mind that. Waiting for it to thaw, he 
 sliced the bacon and plunged into the hateful 
 task of bread-making. Cuthfert had been 
 slyly watching through his half-closed lids. 
 Consequently there was a scene, in which 
 
IN A FAR COUNTRY 85 
 
 they fervently blessed each other, and agreed, 
 thenceforth, that each do his own cooking. A 
 week later, Cuthfert neglected his morning 
 ablutions, but none the less complacently ate 
 the meal which he had cooked. Weatherbee 
 grinned. After that the foolish custom of 
 washing passed out of their lives. 
 
 As the sugar-pile and other little luxuries 
 dwindled, they began to be afraid they were 
 not getting their proper shares, and in order 
 that they might not be robbed, they fell to 
 gorging themselves. The luxuries suffered 
 in this gluttonous contest, as did also the 
 men. In the absence of fresh vegetables 
 and exercise, their blood became impover 
 ished, and a loathsome, purplish rash crept 
 over their bodies. Yet they refused to heed 
 the warning. Next, their muscles and joints 
 began to swell, the flesh turning black, while 
 their mouths, gums, and lips took on the 
 color of rich cream. Instead of being drawn 
 together by their misery, each gloated over 
 the other s symptoms as the scurvy took its 
 course. 
 
 They lost all regard for personal appear 
 ance, and for that matter, common decency. 
 The cabin became a pigpen, and never once 
 
86 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 were the beds made or fresh pine boughs laid 
 underneath. Yet they could not keep to their 
 blankets, as they would have wished ; for the 
 frost was inexorable, and the fire box con 
 sumed much fuel. The hair of their heads 
 and faces grew long and shaggy, while their 
 garments would have disgusted a ragpicker. 
 But they did not care. They were sick, and 
 there was no one to see ; besides, it was very 
 painful to move about. 
 
 To all this was added a new trouble, the 
 Fear of the North. This Fear was the joint 
 child of the Great Cold and the Great Silence, 
 and was born in the darkness of December, 
 when the sun dipped below the southern hori 
 zon for good. It affected them according to 
 their natures. Weatherbee fell prey to the 
 grosser superstitions, and did his best to resur 
 rect the spirits which slept in the forgotten 
 graves. It was a fascinating thing, and in 
 his dreams they came to him from out of the 
 cold, and snuggled into his blankets, and told 
 him of their toils and troubles ere they died. 
 He shrank away from the clammy contact as 
 they drew closer and twined their frozen 
 limbs about him, and when they whispered in 
 his ear of things to come, the cabin rang with 
 
IN A FAR COUNTRY 87 
 
 his frightened shrieks. Cuthfert did not un 
 derstand, for they no longer spoke, and 
 when thus awakened he invariably grabbed 
 for his revolver. Then he would sit up in 
 bed, shivering nervously, with the weapon 
 trained on the unconscious dreamer. Cuth 
 fert deemed the man going mad, and so 
 came to fear for his life. 
 
 His own malady assumed a less concrete 
 form. The mysterious artisan who had laid 
 the cabin, log by log, had pegged a wind- 
 vane to the ridge-pole. Cuthfert noticed it 
 always pointed south, and one day, irritated 
 by its steadfastness of purpose, he turned it 
 toward the east. He watched eagerly, but 
 never a breath came by to disturb it. Then 
 he turned the vane to the north, swearing 
 never again to touch it till the wind did blow. 
 But the air frightened him with its unearthly 
 calm, and he often rose in the middle of the 
 night to see if the vane had veered, ten 
 degrees would have satisfied him. But no, it 
 poised above him as unchangeable as fate. 
 His imagination ran riot, till it became to 
 him a fetich. Sometimes he followed the 
 path it pointed across the dismal dominions, 
 and allowed his soul to become saturated with 
 
88 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 the Fear. He dwelt upon the unseen and the 
 unknown till the burden of eternity appeared 
 to be crushing him. Everything in the North 
 land had that crushing effect, the absence 
 of life and motion ; the darkness ; the infinite 
 peace of the brooding land ; the ghastly si 
 lence, which made the echo of each heart-beat 
 a sacrilege ; the solemn forest which seemed 
 to guard an awful, inexpressible something, 
 which neither word nor thought could com 
 pass. 
 
 The world he had so recently left, with its 
 busy nations and great enterprises, seemed 
 very far away. Recollections occasionally 
 obtruded, recollections of marts and gal 
 leries and crowded thoroughfares, of even 
 ing dress and social functions, of good men 
 and dear women he had known, but they 
 were dim memories of a life he had lived long 
 centuries agone, on some other planet. This 
 phantasm was the Reality. Standing beneath 
 the wind-vane, his eyes fixed on the polar 
 skies, he could not bring himself to realize 
 that the Southland really existed, that at that 
 very moment it was a-roar with life and 
 action. There was no Southland, no men 
 being born of women, no giving and taking 
 
IN A FAR COUNTRY 89 
 
 in marriage. Beyond his bleak sky-line 
 there stretched vast solitudes, and beyond 
 these still vaster solitudes. There were no 
 lands of sunshine, heavy with the perfume of 
 flowers. Such things were only old dreams 
 of paradise. The sunlands of the West and 
 the spicelands of the East, the smiling Arca- 
 dias and blissful Islands of the Blest, ha ! 
 ha ! His laughter split the void and shocked 
 him with its unwonted sound. There was no 
 sun. This was the Universe, dead and cold 
 and dark, and he its only citizen. Weather- 
 bee ? At such moments Weatherbee did not 
 count. He was a Caliban, a monstrous phan 
 tom, fettered to him for untold ages, the 
 penalty of some forgotten crime. 
 
 He lived with Death among the dead, 
 emasculated by the sense of his own insignifi 
 cance, crushed by the passive mastery of the 
 slumbering ages. The magnitude of all things 
 appalled him. Everything partook of the su 
 perlative save himself, the perfect cessa 
 tion of wind and motion, the immensity of 
 the snow-covered wilderness, the height of 
 the sky and the depth of the silence. That 
 wind-vane, if it would only move. If a 
 thunderbolt would fall, or the forest flare up 
 
90 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 in flame. The rolling up of the heavens as 
 a scroll, the crash of Doom anything, any 
 thing ! But no, nothing moved ; the Silence 
 crowded in, and the Fear of the North laid 
 icy fingers on his heart. 
 
 Once, like another Crusoe, by the edge of 
 the river he came upon a track, the faint 
 tracery of a snowshoe rabbit on the delicate 
 snow-crust. It was a revelation. There was 
 life in the Northland. He would follow it, 
 look upon it, gloat over it. He forgot his 
 swollen muscles, plunging through the deep 
 snow in an ecstasy of anticipation. The forest 
 swallowed him up, and the brief midday twi 
 light vanished ; but he pursued his quest till 
 exhausted nature asserted itself and laid him 
 helpless in the snow. There he groaned and 
 cursed his folly, and knew the track to be 
 the fancy of his brain ; and late that night 
 he dragged himself into the cabin on hands 
 and knees, his cheeks frozen and a strange 
 numbness about his feet. Weatherbee 
 grinned malevolently, but made no offer to 
 help him. He thrust needles into his toes 
 and thawed them out by the stove. A week 
 later mortification set in. 
 
 But the clerk had his own troubles. The 
 
IN A FAR COUNTRY 91 
 
 dead men came out of their graves more fre 
 quently now, and rarely left him, waking or 
 sleeping. He grew to wait and dread their 
 coming, never passing the twin cairns with 
 out a shudder. One night they came to him 
 in his sleep and led him forth to an appointed 
 task. Frightened into inarticulate horror, 
 he awoke between the heaps of stones and 
 fled wildly to the cabin. But he had lain 
 there for some time, for his feet and cheeks 
 were also frozen. 
 
 Sometimes he became frantic at their in 
 sistent presence, and danced about the cabin, 
 cutting the empty air with an axe, and smash 
 ing everything within reach. During these 
 ghostly encounters, Cuthfert huddled into his 
 blankets and followed the madman about 
 with a cocked revolver, ready to shoot him if 
 he came too near. But, recovering from one 
 of these spells, the clerk noticed the weapon 
 trained upon him. His suspicions were 
 aroused, and thenceforth he, too, lived in 
 fear of his life. They watched each other 
 closely after that, and faced about in startled 
 fright whenever either passed behind the 
 other s back. This apprehensiveness became 
 a mania which controlled them even in their 
 
92 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 sleep. Through mutual fear they tacitly let 
 the slush-lamp burn all night, and saw to a 
 plentiful supply of bacon-grease before re 
 tiring. The slightest movement on the part 
 of one was sufficient to arouse the other, and 
 many a still watch their gazes countered as 
 they shook beneath their blankets with 
 fingers on the trigger-guards. 
 
 What with the Fear of the North, the 
 mental strain, and the ravages of the disease, 
 they lost all semblance of humanity, taking 
 on the appearance of wild beasts, hunted and 
 desperate. Their cheeks and noses, as an 
 aftermath of the freezing, had turned black. 
 Their frozen toes had begun to drop away 
 at the first and second joints. Every move 
 ment brought pain, but the fire box was in 
 satiable, wringing a ransom of torture from 
 their miserable bodies. Day in, day out, it 
 demanded its food, a veritable pound of 
 flesh, and they dragged themselves into 
 the forest to chop wood on their knees. 
 Once, crawling thus in search of dry sticks, 
 unknown to each other they entered a thicket 
 from opposite sides. Suddenly, without warn 
 ing, two peering death s-heads confronted 
 each other. Suffering had so transformed 
 
IN A FAR COUNTRY 93 
 
 them that recognition was impossible. They 
 sprang to their feet, shrieking with terror, 
 and dashed away on their mangled stumps ; 
 and falling at the cabin door, they clawed 
 and scratched like demons till they discovered 
 their mistake. 
 
 Occasionally they lapsed normal, and dur 
 ing one of these sane intervals, the chief 
 bone of contention, the sugar, had been 
 divided equally between them. They guarded 
 their separate sacks, stored up in the cache, 
 with jealous eyes ; for there were but a few 
 cupfuls left, and they were totally devoid of 
 faith in each other. But one day Cuthfert 
 made a mistake. Hardly able to move, sick 
 with pain, with his head swimming and eyes 
 blinded, he crept into the cache, sugar canis 
 ter in hand, and mistook Weatherbee s sack 
 for his own. 
 
 January had been born but a few days 
 when this occurred. The sun had some time 
 since passed its lowest southern declination, 
 and at meridian now threw flaunting streaks 
 of yellow light upon the northern sky. On 
 the day following his mistake with the sugar- 
 bag, Cuthfert found himself feeling better, 
 
94 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 both in body and in spirit. As noontime 
 drew near and the day brightened, he dragged 
 himself outside to feast on the evanescent 
 glow, which was to him an earnest of the 
 sun s future intentions. Weatherbee was also 
 feeling somewhat better, and crawled out be 
 side him. They propped themselves in the 
 snow beneath the moveless wind-vane, and 
 waited. 
 
 The stillness of death was about them. In 
 other climes, when nature falls into such 
 moods, there is a subdued air of expectancy, 
 a waiting for some small voice to take up the 
 broken strain. Not so in the North. The 
 two men had lived seeming aeons in this 
 ghostly peace. They could remember no 
 song of the past ; they could conjure no song 
 of the future. This unearthly calm had al 
 ways been, the tranquil silence of eternity. 
 
 Their eyes were fixed upon the north. Un 
 seen, behind their backs, behind the towering 
 mountains to the south, the sun swept toward 
 the zenith of another sky than theirs. Sole 
 spectators of the mighty canvas, they watched 
 the false dawn slowly grow. A faint flame 
 began to glow and smoulder. It deepened in 
 intensity, ringing the changes of reddish-yel- 
 
IN A FAR COUNTRY 95 
 
 low, purple, and saffron. So bright did it 
 become that Cuthfert thought the sun must 
 surely be behind it, a miracle, the sun ris 
 ing in the north ! Suddenly, without warn 
 ing and without fading, the canvas was swept 
 clean. There was no color in the sky. The 
 light had gone out of the day. They caught 
 their breaths in half -sobs. But lo ! the air 
 was a-glint with particles of scintillating 
 frost, and there, to the north, the wind-vane 
 lay in vague outline on the snow. A shadow ! 
 A shadow ! It was exactly midday. They 
 jerked their heads hurriedly to the south. 
 A golden rim peeped over the mountain s 
 snowy shoulder, smiled upon them an instant, 
 then dipped from sight again. 
 
 There were tears in their eyes as they 
 sought each other. A strange softening came 
 over them. They felt irresistibly drawn 
 toward each other. The sun was coming 
 back again. It would be with them to-mor 
 row, and the next day, and the next. And 
 it would stay longer every visit, and a time 
 would come when it would ride their heaven 
 day and night, never once dropping below 
 the sky-line. There would be no night. 
 The ice-locked winter would be broken ; the 
 
96 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 winds would blow and the forests answer ; 
 the land would bathe in the blessed sunshine, 
 and life renew. Hand in hand, they would 
 quit this horrid dreain and journey back to 
 the Southland. They lurched blindly for 
 ward, and their hands met, their poor 
 maimed hands, swollen and distorted beneath 
 their mittens. 
 
 But the promise was destined to remain 
 unfulfilled. The Northland is the North 
 land, and men work out their souls by strange 
 rules, which other men, who have not jour 
 neyed into far countries, cannot come to 
 understand. 
 
 An hour later, Cuthf ert put a pan of bread 
 into the oven, and fell to speculating on what 
 the surgeons could do with his feet when he 
 got back. Home did not seem so very far 
 away now. Weatherbee was rummaging in 
 the cache. Of a sudden, he raised a whirl 
 wind of blasphemy, which in turn ceased with 
 startling abruptness. The other man had 
 robbed his sugar-sack. Still, things might 
 have happened differently, had not the two 
 dead men come out from under the stones 
 and hushed the hot words in his throat. 
 
IN A FAR COUNTRY 97 
 
 They led him quite gently from the cache, 
 which he forgot to close. That consumma 
 tion was reached ; that something they had 
 whispered to him in his dreams was about 
 to happen. They guided him gently, very 
 gently, to the woodpile, where they put the 
 axe in his hands. Then they helped him shove 
 open the cabin door, and he felt sure they 
 shut it after him, at least he heard it slam 
 and the latch fall sharply into place. And 
 he knew they were waiting just without, wait 
 ing for him to do his task. 
 
 " Carter ! I say, Carter ! " 
 
 Percy Cuthfert was frightened at the look 
 on the clerk s face, and he made haste to put 
 the table between them. 
 
 Carter Weatherbee followed, without haste 
 and without enthusiasm. There was neither 
 pity nor passion in his face, but rather the 
 patient, stolid look of one who has certain 
 work to do and goes about it methodically. 
 
 " I say, what s the matter ? " 
 
 The clerk dodged back, cutting off his re 
 treat to the door, but never opening his 
 mouth. 
 
 " I say, Carter, I say ; let s talk. There s 
 a good chap." 
 
98 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 The master of arts was thinking rapidly, 
 now, shaping a skillful flank movement on 
 the bed where his Smith & Wesson lay. 
 Keeping his eyes on the madman, he rolled 
 backward on the bunk, at the same time 
 clutching the pistol. 
 
 "Carter!" 
 
 The powder flashed full in Weatherbee s 
 face, but he swung his weapon and leaped 
 forward. The axe bit deeply at the base of 
 the spine, and Percy Cuthfert felt all con 
 sciousness of his lower limbs leave him. Then 
 the clerk fell heavily upon him, clutching 
 him by the throat with feeble fingers. The 
 sharp bite of the axe had caused Cuthfert to 
 drop the pistol, and as his lungs panted for 
 release, he fumbled aimlessly for it among 
 the blankets. Then he remembered. He 
 slid a hand up the clerk s belt to the sheath- 
 knife ; and they drew very close to each 
 other in that last clinch. 
 
 Percy Cuthfert felt his strength leave him. 
 The lower portion of his body was useless. 
 The inert weight of Weatherbee crushed him, 
 - crushed him and pinned him there like a 
 bear under a trap. The cabin became filled 
 with a familiar odor, and he knew the bread 
 
IN A FAR COUNTRY 99 
 
 to be burning. Yet what did it matter ? He 
 would never need it. And there were all of 
 six cupf uls of sugar in the cache, if he had 
 foreseen this he would not have been so sav 
 ing the last several days. Would the wind- 
 vane ever move ? It might even be veering 
 now. Why not? Had he not seen the sun 
 to-day ? He would go and see. No ; it was 
 impossible to move. He had not thought the 
 clerk so heavy a man. 
 
 How quickly the cabin cooled ! The fire 
 must be out. The cold was forcing in. It 
 must be below zero already, and the ice creep 
 ing up the inside of the door. He could not 
 see it, but his past experience enabled him to 
 gauge its progress by the cabin s tempera 
 ture. The lower hinge must be white ere 
 now. Would the tale of this ever reach the 
 world? How would his friends take it? 
 They would read it over their coffee, most 
 likely, and talk it over at the clubs. He 
 could see them very clearly. " Poor Old 
 Cuthfert," they murmured ; " not such a bad 
 sort of a chap, after all." He smiled at their 
 eulogies, and passed on in search of a Turk 
 ish bath. It was the same old crowd upon 
 the streets. Strange, they did not notice his 
 
100 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 moosehide moccasins and tattered German 
 socks! He would take a cab. And after 
 the bath a shave would not be bad. No ; he 
 would eat first. Steak, and potatoes, and 
 green things, how fresh it all was ! And 
 what was that ? Squares of honey, streaming 
 liquid amber ! But why did they bring so 
 much ? Ha ! ha ! he could never eat it all. 
 Shine ! Why certainly. He put his foot on 
 the box. The bootblack looked curiously up 
 at him, and he remembered his moosehide 
 moccasins and went away hastily. 
 
 Hark! The wind-vane must be surely 
 spinning. No ; a mere singing in his ears. 
 That was all, a mere singing. The ice 
 must have passed the latch by now. More 
 likely the upper hinge was covered. Between 
 the moss-chinked roof-poles, little points of 
 frost began to appear. How slowly they 
 grew ! No ; not so slowly. There was a 
 new one, and there another. Two three 
 four ; they were coming too fast to count. 
 There were two growing together. And 
 there, a third had joined them. Why, there 
 were no more spots. They had run together 
 and formed a sheet. 
 
 Well, he would have company. If Gabriel 
 
IN A FAR COUNTRY 101 
 
 ever broke the silence of the North, they 
 would stand together, hand in hand, before 
 the great White Throne. And God would 
 judge them, God would judge them! 
 
 Then Percy Cuthfert closed his eyes and 
 dropped off to sleep. 
 
TO THE MAN ON TRAIL 
 
 " DUMP it in." 
 
 "But I say, Kid, is n t that going it a little 
 too strong ? Whiskey and alcohol s bad 
 enough ; but when it conies to brandy and 
 pepper-sauce and " 
 
 " Dump it in. Who s making this punch, 
 anyway ? " And Malemute Kid smiled be- 
 nignantly through the clouds of steam. " By 
 the time you ve been in this country as long 
 as I have, my son, and lived on rabbit-tracks 
 and salmon-belly, you 11 learn that Christmas 
 conies only once per annum. And a Christ 
 mas without punch is sinking a hole to bed 
 rock with nary a pay-streak." 
 
 " Stack up on that fer a high cyard," ap 
 proved Big Jim Belden, who had come down 
 from his claim on Mazy May to spend Christ 
 mas, and who, as every one knew, had been 
 living the two months past on straight moose- 
 meat. " Hain t fergot the hooch we-uns made 
 on the Tanana, hev yeh ? " 
 
 " Well, I guess yes. Boys, it would have 
 
TO THE MAN ON TRAIL 103 
 
 done your hearts good to see that whole tribe 
 fighting drunk and all because of a glori 
 ous ferment of sugar and sour dough. That 
 was before your time/ Malemute Kid said as 
 he turned to Stanley Prince, a young mining 
 expert who had been in two years. " No white 
 women in the country then, and Mason wanted 
 to get married. Euth s father was chief of 
 the Tananas, and objected, like the rest of 
 the tribe. Stiff? Why, I used my last 
 pound of sugar; finest work in that line I 
 ever did in my life. You should have seen 
 the chase, down the river and across the 
 portage." 
 
 " But the squaw ? " asked Louis Savoy, the 
 tall French-Canadian, becoming interested; 
 for he had heard of this wild deed, when at 
 Forty Mile the preceding winter. 
 
 Then Malemute Kid, who was a born ra 
 conteur, told the unvarnished tale of the 
 Northland Lochinvar. More than one rough 
 adventurer of the North felt his heartstrings 
 draw closer, and experienced vague yearnings 
 for the sunnier pastures of the Southland, 
 where life promised something more than a 
 barren struggle with cold and death. 
 
 " We struck the Yukon just behind the 
 
104 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 first ice-run/ he concluded, " and the tribe 
 only a quarter of an hour behind. But that 
 saved us ; for the second run broke the jam 
 above and shut them out. When they finally 
 got into Nuklukyeto, the whole Post was 
 ready for them And as to the foregather 
 ing, ask Father Roubeau here : he performed 
 the ceremony. " 
 
 The Jesuit took the pipe from his lips, but 
 could only express his gratification with patri 
 archal smiles, while Protestant and Catholic 
 vigorously applauded. 
 
 " By gar ! " ejaculated Louis Savoy, who 
 seemed overcome by the romance of it. " La 
 petite squaw ; mon Mason brav. By gar ! " 
 
 Then, as the first tin cups of punch went 
 round, Settles the Unquenchable sprang to 
 his feet and struck up his favorite drinking 
 song : 
 
 " There s Henry Ward Beecher 
 And Sunday-school teachers, 
 
 All drink of the sassafras root ; 
 But you bet all the same, 
 If it had its right name, 
 
 It s the juice of the forbidden fruit." 
 
 " Oh the juice of the forbidden fruit," 
 
 roared out the Bacchanalian chorus, 
 
TO THE MAN ON TRAIL 105 
 
 " Oh the juice of the forbidden fruit ; 
 But you bet all the same, 
 If it had its right name, 
 It s the juice of the forbidden fruit." 
 
 Malemute Kid s frightful concoction did 
 its work ; the men of the camps and trails 
 unbent in its genial glow, and jest and song 
 and tales of past adventure went round the 
 board. Aliens from a dozen lands, they 
 toasted each and all. It was the English 
 man, Prince, who pledged " Uncle Sam, the 
 precocious infant of the New World ; " the 
 Yankee, Bettles, who drank to " The Queen, 
 God bless her ; " and together, Savoy and 
 Meyers, the German trader, clanged their 
 cups to Alsace and Lorraine. 
 
 Then Malemute Kid arose, cup in hand, 
 and glanced at the greased-paper window, 
 where the frost stood full three inches thick. 
 " A health to the man on trail this night ; 
 may his grub hold out ; may his dogs keep 
 their legs ; may his matches never miss fire." 
 
 Crack ! Crack ! they heard the familiar 
 music of the dogwhip, the whining howl of 
 the Malemutes, and the crunch of a sled as 
 it drew up to the cabin. Conversation lan 
 guished while they waited the issue. 
 
106 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 " An old-timer ; cares for his dogs and then 
 himself," whispered Malemute Kid to Prince, 
 as they listened to the snapping jaws and the 
 wolfish snarls and yelps of pain which pro 
 claimed to their practiced ears that the stran 
 ger was beating back their dogs while he fed 
 his own. 
 
 Then came the expected knock, sharp and 
 confident, and the stranger entered. Daz 
 zled by the light, he hesitated a moment at 
 the door, giving to all a chance for scrutiny. 
 He was a striking personage, and a most pic 
 turesque one, in his Arctic dress of wool and 
 fur. Standing six foot two or three, with 
 proportionate breadth of shoulders and depth 
 of chest, his smooth-shaven face nipped by 
 the cold to a gleaming pink, his long lashes 
 and eyebrows white with ice, and the ear and 
 neck flaps of his great wolfskin cap loosely 
 raised, he seemed, of a verity, the Frost 
 King, just stepped in out of the night. 
 Clasped outside his mackinaw jacket, a 
 beaded belt held two large Colt s revolvers 
 and a hunting-knife, while he carried, in ad 
 dition to the inevitable dogwhip, a smokeless 
 rifle of the largest bore and latest pattern. 
 As he came forward, for all his step was firm 
 
TO THE MAN ON TRAIL 107 
 
 and elastic, they could see that fatigue bore 
 heavily upon him. 
 
 An awkward silence had fallen, but his 
 hearty "What cheer, my lads?" put them 
 quickly at ease, and the next instant Male- 
 mute Kid and he had gripped hands. Though 
 they had never met, each had heard of the 
 other, and the recognition was mutual. A 
 sweeping introduction and a mug of punch 
 were forced upon him before he could explain 
 his errand. 
 
 " How long since that basket-sled, with 
 three men and eight dogs, passed ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " An even two days ahead. Are you after 
 them ? " 
 
 " Yes ; my team. Run them off under my 
 very nose, the cusses. I ve gained two days 
 on them already, pick them up on the next 
 
 run." 
 
 "Reckon they ll show spunk?" asked 
 Belden, in order to keep up the conversation, 
 for Malemute Kid already had the coffee-pot 
 on and was busily frying bacon and moose- 
 meat. 
 
 The stranger significantly tapped his 
 revolvers. 
 
108 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 "When d yeh leave Dawson?" 
 
 "Twelve o clock." 
 
 " Last night ? " as a matter of course. 
 
 " To-day." 
 
 A murmur of surprise passed round the 
 circle. And well it might; for it was just 
 midnight, and seventy-five miles of rough 
 river trail was not to be sneered at for a 
 twelve hours run. 
 
 The talk soon became impersonal, however, 
 harking back to the trails of childhood. As 
 the young stranger ate of the rude fare, Male- 
 mute Kid attentively studied his face. Nor 
 was he long in deciding that it was fair, hon 
 est, and open, and that he liked it. Still 
 youthful, the lines had been firmly traced by 
 toil and hardship. Though genial in conver 
 sation, and mild when at rest, the blue eyes 
 gave promise of the hard steel-glitter which 
 comes when called into action, especially 
 against odds. The heavy jaw and square- 
 cut chin demonstrated rugged pertinacity 
 and indomitability. Nor, though the attri 
 butes of the lion were there, was there want 
 ing the certain softness, the hint of womanli 
 ness, which bespoke the emotional nature. 
 
 " So thet s how me an the oP woman got 
 
TO THE MAN ON TRAIL 109 
 
 spliced," said Belden, concluding the exciting 
 tale of his courtship. " ( Here we be, dad/ 
 sez she. ( An may yeh be damned/ sez he 
 to her, an then to me, Jim, yeh yeh git 
 outen them good duds o yourn ; I want a 
 right peart slice o thet forty acre ploughed 
 fore dinner. An then he turns on her an 
 sez, An yeh, Sal ; yeh sail inter them dishes. 
 An then he sort o sniffled an kissed her. 
 An I was thet happy, but he seen me an 
 roars out, ( Yeh, Jim ! An yeh bet I dusted 
 fer the barn." 
 
 "Any kids waiting for you back in the 
 States ? " asked the stranger. 
 
 " Nope ; Sal died fore any come. Thet s 
 why I m here." Belden abstractedly began 
 to light his pipe, which had failed to go out, 
 and then brightened up with, " How bout 
 yerself, stranger, married man?" 
 
 For reply, he opened his watch, slipped it 
 from the thong which served for a chain, and 
 passed it over. Belden pricked up the slush- 
 lamp, surveyed the inside of the case criti 
 cally, and swearing admiringly to himself, 
 handed it over to Louis Savoy. With numer 
 ous " By gars ! " he finally surrendered it to 
 Prince, and they noticed that his hands trem- 
 
110 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 bled and his eyes took on a peculiar softness. 
 And so it passed from horny hand to horny 
 hand the pasted photograph of a woman, 
 the clinging kind that such men fancy, with 
 a babe at the breast. Those who had not yet 
 seen the wonder were keen with curiosity; 
 those who had, became silent and retrospec 
 tive. They could face the pinch of famine, 
 the grip of scurvy, or the quick death by 
 field or flood ; but the pictured semblance of 
 a stranger woman and child made women and 
 children of them all. 
 
 " Never have seen the youngster yet, 
 he s a boy, she says, and two years old," 
 said the stranger as he received the treasure 
 back. A lingering moment he gazed upon 
 it, then snapped the case and turned away, 
 but not quick enough to hide the restrained 
 rush of tears. 
 
 Malemute Kid led him to a bunk and bade 
 him turn in. 
 
 " Call me at four, sharp. Don t fail me," 
 were his last words, and a moment later he 
 was breathing in the heaviness of exhausted 
 
 o 
 
 sleep. 
 
 " By Jove ! he s a plucky chap," commented 
 Prince. " Three hours sleep after seventy- 
 
TO THE MAN ON TRAIL 111 
 
 five miles with the dogs, and then the trail 
 again. Who is he, Kid?" 
 
 "Jack Westondale. Been in going on 
 three years, with nothing but the name of 
 working like a horse, and any amount of bad 
 luck to his credit. I never knew him, but 
 Sitka Charley told me about him." 
 
 " It seems hard that a man with a sweet 
 young wife like his should be putting in his 
 years in this God-forsaken hole, where every 
 year counts two on the outside." 
 
 " The trouble with him is clean grit and 
 stubbornness. He s cleaned up twice with a 
 stake, but lost it both times." 
 
 Here the conversation was broken off by 
 an uproar from Bettles, for the effect had 
 begun to wear away. And soon the bleak 
 years of monotonous grub and deadening toil 
 were being forgotten in rough merriment. 
 Malemute Kid alone seemed unable to lose 
 himself, and cast many an anxious look at 
 his watch. Once he put on his mittens and 
 beaver-skin cap, and leaving the cabin, fell to 
 rummaging about in the cache. 
 
 Nor could he wait the hour designated ; for 
 he was fifteen minutes ahead of time in rous 
 ing his guest. The young giant had stiffened 
 
112 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 badly, and brisk rubbing was necessary to 
 bring him to his feet. He tottered painfully 
 out of the cabin, to find his dogs harnessed 
 and everything ready for the start. The com 
 pany wished him good luck and a short chase, 
 while Father Roubeau, hurriedly blessing him, 
 led the stampede for the cabin; and small 
 wonder, for it is not good to face seventy- 
 four degrees below zero with naked ears and 
 hands. 
 
 Malemute Kid saw him to the main trail, 
 and there, gripping his hand heartily, gave 
 him advice. 
 
 " You 11 find a hundred pounds of salmon- 
 eggs on the sled," he said. " The dogs will 
 go as far on that as with one hundred and 
 fifty of fish, and you can t get dog-food at 
 Pelly, as you probably expected." The 
 stranger started, and his eyes flashed, but 
 he did not interrupt. " You can t get an 
 ounce of food for dog or man till you reach 
 Five Fingers, and that s a stiff two hundred 
 miles. Watch out for open water on the 
 Thirty Mile River, and be sure you take the 
 big cut-off above Le Barge." 
 
 " How did you know it ? Surely the news 
 can t be ahead of me already ? " 
 
TO THE MAN ON TRAIL 113 
 
 " I don t know it ; and what s more, I 
 don t want to know it. But you never owned 
 that team you re chasing. Sitka Charley 
 sold it to them last spring. But he sized you 
 up to me as square once, and I believe him. 
 I ve seen your face ; I like it. And I ve 
 seen why, damn you, hit the high places for 
 salt water and that wife of yours, and" 
 Here the Kid unmittened and jerked out his 
 sack. 
 
 " No ; I don t need it," and the tears froze 
 on his cheeks as he convulsively gripped 
 Malemute Kid s hand. 
 
 " Then don t spare the dogs ; cut them 
 out of the traces as fast as they drop ; buy 
 them, and think they re cheap at ten dollars 
 a pound. You can get them at Five Fingers, 
 Little Salmon, and the Hootalinqua. And 
 watch out for wet feet," was his parting 
 advice. " Keep a-traveling up to twenty-five, 
 but if it gets below that, build a fire and 
 change your socks." 
 
 Fifteen minutes had barely elapsed when 
 the jingle of bells announced new arrivals. 
 The door opened, and a mounted policeman 
 of the Northwest Territory entered, followed 
 
114 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 by two half-breed dog-drivers. Like Weston- 
 dale, they were heavily armed and showed 
 signs of fatigue. The half-breeds had been 
 born to the trail, and bore it easily ; but the 
 young policeman was badly exhausted. Still, 
 the dogged obstinacy of his race held him to 
 the pace he had set, and would hold him till 
 he dropped in his tracks. 
 
 "When did Westondale pull out?" he 
 asked. " He stopped here, did n t he ? " 
 This was supererogatory, for the tracks told 
 their own tale too well. 
 
 Malemute Kid had caught Belden s eye, 
 and he, scenting the wind, replied evasively, 
 " A right peart while back." 
 
 " Come, my man ; speak up," the police 
 man admonished. 
 
 "Yeh seem to want him right smart. Hez 
 he ben gittin cantankerous down Dawson 
 way ? " 
 
 " Held up Harry McFarland s for forty 
 thousand ; exchanged it at the P. C. store 
 for a check on Seattle ; and who s to- stop the 
 cashing of it if we don t overtake him ? 
 When did he pull out ? " 
 
 Every eye suppressed its excitement, for 
 Malemute Kid had given the cue, and the 
 
TO THE MAN ON TRAIL 115 
 
 young officer encountered wooden faces on 
 every hand. 
 
 Striding over to Prince, he put the ques 
 tion to him. Though it hurt him, gazing 
 into the frank, earnest face of his fellow 
 countryman, he replied inconsequentially on 
 the state of the trail. 
 
 Then he espied Father Koubeau, who 
 could not lie. " A quarter of an hour ago," 
 the priest answered ; " but he had four hours 
 rest for himself and dogs." 
 
 " Fifteen minutes start, and he s fresh ! 
 My God ! " The poor fellow staggered back, 
 half fainting from exhaustion and disappoint 
 ment, murmuring something about the run 
 from Dawson in ten hours and the dogs be 
 ing played out. 
 
 Malemute Kid forced a mug of punch 
 upon him ; then he turned for the door, or 
 dering the dog-drivers to follow. But the 
 warmth and promise of rest were too tempt 
 ing, and they objected strenuously. The Kid 
 was conversant with their French patois, and 
 followed it anxiously. 
 
 They swore that the dogs were gone up ; 
 that Siwash and Babette would have to be 
 shot before the first mile was covered ; that 
 
116 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 the rest were almost as bad ; and that it 
 would be better for all hands to rest up. 
 
 " Lend me five dogs?" he asked, turning 
 to Malemute Kid. 
 
 But the Kid shook his head. 
 
 " I 11 sign a check on Captain Constantine 
 for five thousand, here s my papers, I m 
 authorized to draw at my own discretion." 
 
 Again the silent refusal. 
 
 " Then I 11 requisition them in the name 
 of the Queen." 
 
 Smiling incredulously, the Kid glanced at 
 his well-stocked arsenal, and the Englishman, 
 realizing his impotency, turned for the door. 
 But the dog-drivers still objecting, he whirled 
 upon them fiercely, calling them women and 
 curs. The swart face of the older half-breed 
 flushed angrily, as he drew himself up and 
 promised in good, round terms that he would 
 travel his leader off his legs, and would then 
 be delighted to plant him in the snow. 
 
 The young officer and it required his 
 whole will walked steadily to the door, ex 
 hibiting a freshness he did not possess. But 
 they all knew and appreciated his proud ef 
 fort ; nor could he veil the twinges of agony 
 that shot across his face. Covered with 
 
TO THE MAN ON TRAIL 117 
 
 frost, the dogs were curled up in the snow, 
 and it was almost impossible to get them to 
 their feet. The poor brutes whined under 
 the stinging lash, for the dog-drivers were 
 angry and cruel ; nor till Babette, the leader, 
 was cut from the traces, could they break out 
 the sled and get under way. 
 
 " A dirty scoundrel and a liar ! " " By 
 gar ! him no good ! " "A thief ! " " Worse 
 than an Indian ! " It was evident that they 
 were angry first, at the way they had been 
 deceived ; and second, at the outraged ethics 
 of the Northland, where honesty, above all, 
 was man s prime jewel. " An we gave the 
 cuss a hand, after knowin what he d did." 
 All eyes were turned accusingly upon Male- 
 mute Kid, who rose from the corner where 
 he had been making Babette comfortable, 
 and silently emptied the bowl for a final 
 round of punch. 
 
 " It s a cold night, boys, a bitter cold 
 night," was the irrelevant commencement of 
 his defense. " You ve all traveled trail, and 
 know what that stands for. Don t jump a 
 dog when he s down. You ve only heard 
 one side. A whiter man than Jack Weston- 
 dale never ate from the same pot nor stretched 
 
118 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 blanket with you or me. Last fall he gave 
 his whole clean-up, forty thousand, to Joe 
 Castrell, to buy in on Dominion. To-day 
 he d be a millionaire. But while he stayed 
 behind at Circle City, taking care of his part 
 ner with the scurvy, what does Castrell do ? 
 Goes into McFarland s, jumps the limit, and 
 drops the whole sack. Found him dead in 
 the snow the next day. And poor Jack lay 
 ing his plans to go out this winter to his wife 
 and the boy he s never seen. You 11 notice 
 he took exactly what his partner lost, forty 
 thousand. Well, he s gone out ; and what 
 are you going to do about it? " 
 
 The Kid glanced round the circle of his 
 judges, noted the softening of their faces, 
 then raised his mug aloft. " So a health to 
 the man on trail this night ; may his grub 
 hold out ; may his dogs keep their legs ; may 
 his matches never miss fire. God prosper 
 him ; good luck go with him ; and " 
 
 " Confusion to the Mounted Police! " cried 
 Bettles, to the crash of the empty cups. 
 
THE PRIESTLY PREROGATIVE 
 
 THIS is the story of a man who did not ap 
 preciate his wife ; also, of a woman who did 
 him too great an honor when she gave her 
 self to him. Incidentally, it concerns a Jesuit 
 priest who had never been known to lie. He 
 was an appurtenance, and a very necessary 
 one, to the Yukon country ; but the presence 
 of the other two was merely accidental. They 
 were specimens of the many strange waifs 
 which ride the breast of a gold rush or come 
 tailing along behind. 
 
 Edwin Bentham and Grace Bentham were 
 waifs; they were also tailing along behind, 
 for the Klondike rush of 97 had long since 
 swept down the great river and subsided into 
 the famine-stricken city of Dawson. When 
 the Yukon shut up shop and went to sleep 
 under a three-foot ice-sheet, this peripatetic 
 couple found themselves at the Five Finger 
 Rapids, with the City of Gold still a journey 
 of many sleeps to the north. 
 
 Not a few cattle had been butchered at this 
 
120 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 place in the fall of the year, and the offal 
 made a goodly heap. The three fellow voy- 
 ageurs of Edwin Bentham and wife gazed 
 upon this deposit, did a little mental arithmetic, 
 caught a certain glimpse of a bonanza, and 
 decided to remain. And all winter they sold 
 sacks of bones and frozen hides to the fam 
 ished dog-teams. It was a modest price they 
 asked, a dollar a pound, just as it came. Six 
 months later, when the sun came back and 
 the Yukon awoke, they buckled on their heavy 
 money-belts and journeyed back to the South 
 land, where they yet live and lie mightily 
 about the Klondike they never saw. 
 
 But Edwin Bentham he was an indolent 
 fellow, and had he not been possessed of a 
 wife, would have gladly joined issues in the 
 dog-meat speculation. As it was, she played 
 upon his vanity, told him how great and 
 strong he was, how a man such as he cer 
 tainly was could overcome all obstacles and 
 of a surety obtain the Golden Fleece. So he 
 squared his jaw, sold his share in the bones 
 and hides for a sled and one dog, and turned 
 his snowshoes to the north. Needless to state, 
 Grace Bentham s snowshoes never allowed 
 his tracks to grow cold. Nay, ere their tribu- 
 
THE PRIESTLY PREROGATIVE 121 
 
 lations had seen three days, it was the man 
 who followed in the rear, and the woman who 
 broke trail in advance. Of course, if anybody 
 hove in sight, the position was instantly re 
 versed. Thus did his manhood remain virgin 
 to the travelers who passed like ghosts on the 
 silent trail. There are such men in this world. 
 
 How such a man and such a woman came 
 to take each other for better and for worse is 
 unimportant to this narrative. These things 
 are familiar to us all, and those people who 
 do them, or even question them too closely, 
 are apt to lose a beautiful faith which is known 
 as Eternal Fitness. 
 
 Edwin Bentham was a boy, thrust by mis 
 chance into a man s body, a boy who could 
 complacently pluck a butterfly, wing from 
 wing, or cower in abject terror before a lean, 
 nervy fellow, not half his size. He was a 
 selfish cry-baby, hidden behind a man s mus 
 tache and stature, and glossed over with a 
 skin-deep veneer of culture and conventional 
 ity. Yes ; he was a clubman and a society 
 man, the sort that grace social functions 
 and utter inanities with a charm and unction 
 which are indescribable; the sort that talk 
 big, and cry over a toothache ; the sort that 
 
122 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 put more hell into a woman s life by marrying 
 her than can the most graceless libertine that 
 ever browsed in forbidden pastures. We meet 
 these men every day, but we rarely know them 
 for what they are. Second to marrying them, 
 the best way to get this knowledge is to eat 
 out of the same pot and crawl under the same 
 blanket with them for well, say a week ; no 
 greater margin is necessary. 
 
 To see Grace Bentham was to see a slender, 
 girlish creature ; to know her was to know a 
 soul which dwarfed one s own, yet retained all 
 the elements of the eternal feminine. This was 
 the woman who urged and encouraged her 
 husband in his Northland quest, who broke 
 trail for him when no one was looking, and 
 cried in secret over her weakling woman s body. 
 
 So journeyed this strangely assorted couple 
 down to old Fort Selkirk, then through five 
 score miles of dismal wilderness to Stuart River. 
 And when the short day left them, and the 
 man lay down in the snow and blubbered, it 
 was the woman who lashed him to the sled, 
 bit her lips with the pain of her aching limbs, 
 and helped the dog haul him to Malemute 
 Kid s cabin. Malemute Kid was not at home, 
 but Meyers, the German trader, cooked great 
 
THE PRIESTLY PREROGATIVE 123 
 
 moose-steaks and shook up a bed of fresh pine 
 boughs. 
 
 Lake, Langham, and Parker were excited, 
 and not unduly so when the cause was taken 
 into account. 
 
 " Oh, Sandy ! Say, can you tell a porter 
 house from a round ? Come out and lend us 
 a hand, anyway ! " This appeal emanated 
 from the cache, where Langham was vainly 
 struggling with divers quarters of frozen 
 moose. 
 
 " Don t you budge from those dishes ! " 
 commanded Parker. 
 
 " I say, Sandy there s a good fellow 
 just run down to the Missouri Camp and bor 
 row some cinnamon," begged Lake. 
 
 "Oh! oh! hurry up! Why don t "- 
 But the crash of meat and boxes, in the cache, 
 abruptly quenched this peremptory summons. 
 
 " Come now, Sandy ; it won t take a minute 
 to go down to the Missouri " 
 
 " You leave him alone," interrupted Parker. 
 " How am I to mix the biscuits if the table 
 is n t cleared off?" 
 
 Sandy paused in indecision, till suddenly 
 the fact that he was Langham s " man " 
 
124 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 dawned upon him. Then he apologetically 
 threw down the greasy dishcloth, and went to 
 his master s rescue. 
 
 These promising scions of wealthy progeni 
 tors had come to the Northland in search of 
 laurels, with much money to burn, and a 
 " man " apiece. Luckily for their souls, the 
 other two men were up the White River in 
 search of a mythical quartz-ledge ; so Sandy 
 had to grin under the responsibility of three 
 healthy masters, each of whom was possessed 
 of peculiar cookery ideas. Twice that morn 
 ing had a disruption of the whole camp been 
 imminent, only averted by immense conces 
 sions from one or the other of these knights 
 of the chafing-dish. But at last their mutual 
 creation, a really dainty dinner, was completed. 
 Then they sat down to a three-cornered game 
 of " cut-throat," - a proceeding which did 
 away with all casus belli for future hostilities, 
 and permitted the victor to depart on a most 
 important mission. 
 
 This fortune fell to Parker, who parted his 
 hair in the middle, put on his mittens and 
 bear-skin cap, and stepped over to Malemute 
 Kid s cabin. And when he returned, it was 
 in the company of Grace Bentham and Male- 
 
THE PRIESTLY PREROGATIVE 125 
 
 mute Kid, the former very sorry her husband 
 could not share with her their hospitality, for 
 he had gone up to look at the Henderson 
 Creek mines, and the latter still a trifle stiff 
 from breaking trail down the Stuart River. 
 Meyers had been asked, but had declined, be 
 ing deeply engrossed in an experiment of 
 raising bread from hops. 
 
 Well, they could do without the husband ; 
 but a woman why, they had not seen one 
 all winter, and the presence of this one pro 
 mised a new hegira in their lives. They were 
 college men and gentlemen, these three young 
 fellows, yearning for the flesh-pots they had 
 been so long denied. Probably Grace Ben- 
 tham suffered from a similar hunger ; at least, 
 it meant much to her, the first bright hour in 
 many weeks of darkness. 
 
 But that wonderful first course, which 
 claimed the versatile Lake for its parent, had 
 no sooner been served than there came a loud 
 knock at the door. 
 
 " Oh ! Ah ! Won t you come in, Mr. Ben- 
 tham ? " said Parker, who had stepped to see 
 who the newcomer might be. 
 
 " Is my wife here ? " gruffly responded that 
 worthy. 
 
126 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 "Why, yes. We left word with Mr. 
 Meyers." Parker was exerting his most dul 
 cet tones, inwardly wondering what the deuce 
 it all meant. " Won t you come in ? Expect 
 ing you at any moment, we reserved a place. 
 And just in time for the first course, too." 
 
 " Come in, Edwin, dear," chirped Grace 
 Bentham from her seat at the table. 
 
 Parker naturally stood aside. 
 
 " I want my wife," reiterated Bentham 
 hoarsely, the intonation savoring disagreeably 
 of ownership. 
 
 Parker gasped, was within an ace of driv 
 ing his fist into the face of his boorish visitor, 
 but held himself awkwardly in check. Every 
 body rose. Lake lost his head and caught 
 himself on the verge of saying, " Must you 
 go?" 
 
 Then began the farrago of leave-taking. 
 "So nice of you" "Awfully sorry" 
 " By Jove ! how things did brighten " 
 " Really now, you " " Thank you ever so 
 much " " Nice trip to Dawson " - etc. 
 
 In this wise the lamb was helped into her 
 jacket and led to the slaughter. Then the 
 door slammed, and they gazed woefully upon 
 the deserted table. 
 
THE PRIESTLY PREROGATIVE 127 
 
 " Damn ! " Langham had suffered dis 
 advantages in his early training, and his oaths 
 were weak and monotonous. " Damn ! " he 
 repeated, vaguely conscious of the incom 
 pleteness and vainly struggling for a more 
 virile term. 
 
 It is a clever woman who can fill out the 
 many weak places in an inefficient man, by 
 her own indomitability reinforce his vacil 
 lating nature, infuse her ambitious soul into 
 his, and spur him on to great achievements. 
 And it is indeed a very clever and tactful 
 woman who can do all this, and do it so subtly 
 that the man receives all the credit and be 
 lieves in his inmost heart that everything is 
 due to him and him alone. 
 
 This is what Grace Bentham proceeded to 
 do. Arriving in Dawson with a few pounds 
 of flour and several letters of introduction, 
 she at once applied herself to the task of 
 pushing her big baby to the fore. It was 
 she who melted the stony heart and wrung 
 credit from the rude barbarian who presided 
 over the destiny of the P. C. Company ; yet 
 it was Edwin Bentham to whom the conces 
 sion was ostensibly granted. It was she who 
 
128 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 dragged her baby up and down creeks, over 
 benches and divides, and on a dozen wild 
 stampedes ; yet everybody remarked what an 
 energetic fellow that Bentham was. It was 
 she who studied maps, and catechised miners, 
 and hammered geography and locations into 
 his hollow head, till everybody marveled at 
 his broad grasp of the country and knowledge 
 of its conditions. Of course, they said the 
 wife was a brick, and only a few wise ones 
 appreciated and pitied her. 
 
 She did the work ; he got the credit and 
 reward. In the Northwest Territory a mar 
 ried woman cannot stake or record a creek, 
 bench, or quartz claim ; so Edwin Bentham 
 went down to the Gold Commissioner and 
 filed on Bench Claim 23, second tier, of 
 French Hill. And when April came they 
 were washing out a thousand dollars a day, 
 with many, many such days in prospect. 
 
 At the base of French Hill lay Eldorado 
 Creek, and on a creek claim stood the cabin 
 of Clyde Wharton. At present he was not 
 washing out a diurnal thousand dollars ; but 
 his dumps grew, shift by shift, and there 
 would come a time when those dumps would 
 pass through his sluice-boxes, depositing in 
 
THE PRIESTLY PREROGATIVE 129 
 
 the riffles, in the course of half a dozen days, 
 several hundred thousand dollars. He often 
 sat in that cabin, smoked his pipe, and 
 dreamed beautiful little dreams, dreams in 
 which neither the dumps nor the half-ton of 
 dust in the P. C. Company s big safe played 
 a part. 
 
 And Grace Bentham, as she washed tin 
 dishes in her hillside cabin, often glanced 
 down into Eldorado Creek, and dreamed, 
 not of dumps nor dust, however. They met 
 frequently, as the trail to the one claim 
 crossed the other, and there is much to talk 
 about in the Northland spring ; but never 
 once, by the light of an eye nor the slip of a 
 tongue, did they speak their hearts. 
 
 This is as it was at first. But one day 
 Edwin Bentham was brutal. All boys are 
 thus ; besides, being a French Hill king now, 
 he began to think a great deal of himself and 
 to forget all he owed to his wife. On this 
 day, Wharton heard of it, and waylaid Grace 
 Bentham, and talked wildly. This made her 
 very happy, though she would not listen, and 
 made him promise to not say such things 
 again. Her hour had not come. 
 
 But the sun swept back on its northern 
 
130 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 journey, the black of midnight changed to 
 the steely color of dawn, the snow slipped 
 away, the water dashed again over the glacial 
 drift, and the wash-up began. Day and night 
 the yellow clay and scraped bed-rock hurried 
 through the swift sluices, yielding up its ran 
 som to the strong men from the Southland. 
 And in that time of tumult came Grace Ben- 
 tham s hour. 
 
 To all of us such hours at some time come, 
 
 - that is, to us who are not too phlegmatic. 
 
 Some people are good, not from inherent love 
 
 of virtue, but from sheer laziness. Those of 
 
 us who know weak moments may understand. 
 
 Edwin Bentham was weighing dust over 
 the bar of the saloon at the Forks alto 
 gether too much of his dust went over that 
 pine board when his wife came down the 
 hill and slipped into Clyde Wharton s cabin. 
 W barton was not expecting her, but that 
 did not alter the case. And much subsequent 
 misery and idle waiting might have been 
 avoided, had not Father Roubeau seen this 
 and turned aside from the main creek trail. 
 
 "My child" 
 
 " Hold on, Father Roubeau ! Though 
 
THE PRIESTLY PREROGATIVE 131 
 
 I m not of your faith, I respect you ; but 
 you can t come in between this woman and 
 me!" 
 
 " You know what you are doing ? " 
 
 " Know ! Were you God Almighty, ready 
 to fling me into eternal fire, I d bank my will 
 against yours in this matter." 
 
 Wharton had placed Grace on a stool and 
 stood belligerently before her. 
 
 " You sit down on that chair and keep 
 quiet/ he continued, addressing the Jesuit. 
 " I 11 take my innings now. You can have 
 yours after." 
 
 Father Eoubeau bowed courteously and 
 obeyed. He was an easy-going man and had 
 learned to bide his time. Wharton pulled a 
 stool alongside the woman s, smothering her 
 hand in his. 
 
 " Then you do care for me, and will take 
 me away ? " 
 
 Her face seemed to reflect the peace of 
 this man, against whom she might draw close 
 for shelter. 
 
 "Dear, don t you remember what I said 
 before ? Of course I " 
 
 " But how can you ? the wash-up ? " 
 
 " Do you think that worries ? Anyway, 
 
132 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 I 11 give the job to Father Roubeau, here. I 
 can trust him to safely bank the dust with 
 the company." 
 
 "To think of it! I ll never see him 
 again." 
 
 " A blessing ! " 
 
 " And to go Oh, Clyde, I can t ! I 
 can t!" 
 
 " There, there ; of course you can. Just 
 let me plan it. You see, as soon as we get 
 a few traps together, we 11 start, and " 
 
 " Suppose he comes back ? " 
 
 " I 11 break every " 
 
 " No, no ! No fighting, Clyde ! Promise 
 me that." 
 
 " All right ! I 11 just tell the men to throw 
 him off the claim. They ve seen how he s 
 treated you, and have n t much love for him." 
 
 " You must n t do that. You must n t 
 hurt him." 
 
 " What then ? Let him come right in here 
 and take you away before my eyes?" 
 
 " No-o," she half whispered, stroking his 
 hand softly. 
 
 " Then let me run it, and don t worry. 
 I 11 see he does n t get hurt. Precious lot 
 he cared whether you got hurt or not ! We 
 
THE PRIESTLY PREROGATIVE 133 
 
 won t go back to Dawson. I ll send word 
 down for a couple of the boys to outfit and 
 pole a boat up the Yukon. We 11 cross the 
 divide and raft down the Indian Kiver to 
 meet them. Then " 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 Her head was on his shoulder. Their 
 voices sank to softer cadences, each word a 
 caress. The Jesuit fidgeted nervously. 
 
 " And then ? " she repeated. 
 
 " Why, we 11 pole up, and up, and up, and 
 portage the White Horse Rapids and the 
 Box Canon." 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " And the Sixty-Mile River ; then the 
 lakes, Chilcoot, Dyea, and Salt Water." 
 
 " But, dear, I can t pole a boat." 
 
 " You little goose ! I 11 get Sitka Char 
 ley ; he knows all the good water and best 
 camps, and he is the best traveler I ever met, 
 if he is an Indian. All you 11 have to do, is 
 to sit in the middle of the boat, and sing 
 songs, and play Cleopatra, and fight no, 
 we re in luck ; too early for mosquitoes." 
 
 " And then, my Antony ? " 
 
 " And then a steamer, San Francisco, and 
 the world ! Never to come back to this cursed 
 
134 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 hole again. Think of it ! The world, and 
 ours to choose from ! I 11 sell out. Why, 
 we re rich ! The Waldworth Syndicate will 
 give me half a million for what s left in the 
 ground, and I ve got twice as much in the 
 dumps and with the P. C. Company. We 11 
 go to the Fair in Paris in 1900. We 11 go to 
 Jerusalem, if you say so. We 11 buy an 
 Italian palace, and you can play Cleopatra to 
 your heart s content. No, you shall be Lu- 
 cretia, Acte, or anybody your little heart sees 
 fit to become. But you must n t, you really 
 must n t " 
 
 " The wife of Caesar shall be above re 
 proach." 
 
 " Of course, but " 
 
 " But I won t be your wife, will I, dear ? " 
 
 " I did n t mean that." 
 
 " But you 11 love me just as much, and 
 never even think oh! I know you ll be 
 like other men ; you 11 grow tired, and 
 and" 
 
 "How can you? I" 
 
 " Promise me." 
 
 " Yes, yes ; I do promise." 
 
 " You say it so easily, dear ; but how do 
 you know? or I know? I have so little 
 
THE PRIESTLY PREROGATIVE 135 
 
 to give, yet it is so much. Oh, Clyde ! promise 
 me you won t ? " 
 
 " There, there ! You must n t begin to 
 doubt already. Till death do us part, you 
 know." 
 
 " Think ! I once said that to to him, 
 and now?" 
 
 "And now, little sweetheart, you re not 
 to bother about such things any more. Of 
 course, I never, never will, and " 
 
 And for the first time, lips trembled against 
 lips. Father Roubeau had been watching the 
 main trail through the window, but could 
 stand the strain no longer. He cleared his 
 throat and turned around. 
 
 " Your turn now, Father ! " Wharton s 
 face was flushed with the fire of his first em 
 brace. There was an exultant ring to his 
 voice as he abdicated in the other s favor. 
 He had no doubt as to the result. Neither 
 had Grace, for a smile played about her 
 mouth as she faced the priest. 
 
 " My child," he began, " my heart bleeds 
 for you. It is a pretty dream, but it cannot 
 be." 
 
 " And why, Father ? I have said yes." 
 
 " You knew not what you did. You did 
 
136 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 not think of the oath you took, before your 
 God, to that man who is your husband. It 
 remains for me to make you realize the sanc 
 tity of such a pledge." 
 
 "And if I do realize, and yet refuse?" 
 
 " Then God" - 
 
 "Which God? My husband has a God 
 which I care not to worship. There must be 
 many such." 
 
 " Child ! unsay those words ! Ah ! you do 
 not mean them. I understand. I, too, have 
 had such moments." For an instant he was 
 back in his native France, and a wistful, sad- 
 eyed face came as a mist between him and 
 the woman before him. 
 
 " Then, Father, has my God forsaken me ? 
 I am not wicked above women. My misery 
 with him has been great. Why should it be 
 greater? Why shall I not grasp at happi 
 ness ? I cannot, will not, go back to him ! " 
 
 " Rather is your God forsaken. Return. 
 Throw your burden upon Him, and the dark 
 ness shall be lifted. Oh, my child " 
 
 " No ; it is useless ; I have made my bed 
 and so shall I lie. I will go on. And if God 
 punishes me, I shall bear it somehow. You 
 do not understand. You are not a woman." 
 
THE PRIESTLY PREROGATIVE 137 
 
 " My mother was a woman." 
 
 "But" 
 
 " And Christ was born of woman." 
 
 She did not answer. A silence fell. Whar- 
 ton pulled his mustache impatiently and kept 
 an eye on the trail. Grace leaned her elbow 
 on the table, her face set with resolve. The 
 smile had died away. Father Eoubeau shifted 
 his ground. 
 
 " You have children ? " 
 
 " At one time I wished but now no. 
 And I am thankful." 
 
 "And a mother?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "She loves you?" 
 
 " Yes." Her replies were whispers. 
 
 " And a brother ? no matter, he is a 
 man. But a sister?" 
 
 Her head drooped a quavering yes. 
 
 " Younger ? Very much ? " 
 
 " Seven years." 
 
 " And you have thought well about this 
 matter ? About them ? About your mother ? 
 And your sister ? She stands on the thresh 
 old of her woman s life, and this wildness of 
 yours may mean much to her. Could you go 
 before her, look upon her fresh young face, 
 
138 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 hold her hand in yours, or touch your cheek 
 to hers?" 
 
 To his words, her brain formed vivid im 
 ages, till she cried out, " Don t ! don t ! " and 
 shrank away as do the wolf-dogs from the lash. 
 
 " But you must face all this ; and better it 
 is to do it now." 
 
 In his eyes, which she could not see, there 
 was a great compassion, but his face, tense 
 and quivering, showed no relenting. She 
 raised her head from the table, forced back 
 the tears, struggled for control. 
 
 " I shall go away. They will never see 
 me, and come to forget me. I shall be to 
 them as dead. And and I will go with 
 Clyde to-day." 
 
 It seemed final. Wharton stepped for 
 ward, but the priest waved him back. 
 
 " You have wished for children ? " 
 
 A silent yes. 
 
 " And prayed for them ? " 
 
 "Often." 
 
 " And have you thought, if you should 
 have children?" Father Roubeau s eyes 
 rested for a moment on the man by the 
 window. 
 
 A quick light shot across her face. Then 
 
THE PRIESTLY PREROGATIVE 139 
 
 the full import dawned upon her. She raised 
 her hand appealingly, but he went on. 
 
 " Can you picture an innocent babe in 
 your arms ? A boy ? The world is not so 
 hard upon a girl. Why, your very breast 
 would turn to gall ! And you could be proud 
 and happy of your boy, as you looked on 
 other children ? " 
 
 " Oh, have pity ! Hush ! " 
 
 " A scapegoat " 
 
 " Don t ! don t ! I will go back ! " She 
 was at his feet. 
 
 " A child to grow up with no thought of 
 evil, and one day the world to fling a tender 
 name in his face ! " 
 
 "Omy God! my God!" 
 
 She groveled on the floor. The priest 
 sighed and raised her to her feet. Wharton 
 pressed forward, but she motioned him away. 
 
 " Don t come near me, Clyde ! I am going 
 back ! " The tears were coursing pitifully 
 down her face, but she made no effort to wipe 
 them away. 
 
 " After all this ? You cannot ! I will not 
 let you ! " 
 
 " Don t touch me ! " She shivered and 
 drew back. 
 
140 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 " I will ! You are mine ! Do you hear ? 
 You are mine ! " Then he whirled upon the 
 priest. " Oh, what a fool I was to ever let you 
 wag your silly tongue ! Thank your God you 
 are not a common man, for I d But the 
 priestly prerogative must be exercised, eh ? 
 Well, you have exercised it. Now get out of 
 my house, or I 11 forget who and what you 
 are ! " 
 
 Father Roubeau bowed, took her hand, 
 and started for the door. But Wharton cut 
 them off. 
 
 " Grace ! You said you loved me ? " 
 
 "I did." 
 
 " And you do now? " 
 
 I do." 
 
 "Say it again." 
 
 " I do love you, Clyde ; I do." 
 
 " There, you priest ! " he cried. " You 
 have heard it, and with those words on her 
 lips you would send her back to live a lie and 
 a hell with that man ? " 
 
 But Father Roubeau whisked the woman 
 into the inner room and closed the door. " No 
 words ! " he whispered to Wharton, as he 
 struck a casual posture on a stool. " Remem 
 ber, for her sake," he added. 
 
THE PRIESTLY PREROGATIVE 141 
 
 The room echoed to a rough knock at the 
 door ; then the latch raised and Edwin Ben- 
 tham stepped in. 
 
 " Seen anything of my wife ? " he asked, 
 as soon as salutations had been exchanged. 
 
 Two heads nodded negatively. 
 
 " I saw her tracks down from the cabin/ 
 he continued tentatively, " and they broke off, 
 just opposite here, on the main trail." 
 
 His listeners looked bored. 
 
 " And I I thought" 
 
 " She was here ! " thundered Wharton. 
 
 The priest silenced him with a look. " Did 
 you see her tracks leading up to this cabin, 
 my son ? " Wily Father Roubeau he had 
 taken good care to obliterate them as he came 
 up the same path an hour before. 
 
 " I did n t stop to look, I " His eyes 
 rested suspiciously on the door to the other 
 room, then interrogated the priest. The latter 
 shook his head; but the doubt seemed to 
 linger. 
 
 Father Roubeau breathed a swift, silent 
 prayer, and rose to his feet. " If you doubt 
 me, why " He made as though to open 
 the door. 
 
 A priest could not lie. Edwin Bentham 
 
142 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 had heard this often, and believed it. " Of 
 course not, Father," he interposed hurriedly. 
 " I was only wondering where my wife had 
 gone, and thought maybe I guess she s up 
 at Mrs. Stanton s on French Gulch. Nice 
 weather, is n t it ? Heard the news ? Flour s 
 gone down to forty dollars a hundred, and 
 they say the che-cha-quas are flocking down 
 the river in droves. But I must be going; 
 so good-by." 
 
 The door slammed, and from the window 
 they watched him take his quest up French 
 Gulch. 
 
 A few weeks later, just after the June 
 high-water, two men shot a canoe into mid 
 stream and made fast to a derelict pine. This 
 tightened the painter and jerked the frail 
 craft along as would a tow-boat. Father Ron- 
 beau had been directed to leave the Upper 
 Country and return to his swarthy children 
 at Minook. The white men had come among 
 them, and they were devoting too little time to 
 fishing, and too much to a certain deity whose 
 transient habitat was in countless black bot 
 tles. Malemute Kid also had business in the 
 Lower Country, so they journeyed together. 
 
THE PRIESTLY PREROGATIVE 143 
 
 But one, in all the Northland, knew the 
 man Paul Roubeau, and that man was Male- 
 mute Kid. Before him alone did the priest 
 cast off the sacerdotal garb and stand naked. 
 And why not ? These two men knew each 
 other. Had they not shared the last morsel 
 of fish, the last pinch of tobacco, the last 
 and inmost thought, on the barren stretches 
 of Bering Sea, in the heart-breaking mazes 
 of the Great Delta, on the terrible winter 
 journey from Point Barrow to the Porcu 
 pine? 
 
 Father Roubeau puffed heavily at his trail- 
 worn pipe, and gazed on the red-disked sun, 
 poised sombrely on the edge of the northern 
 horizon. Malemute Kid wound up his watch. 
 It was midnight. 
 
 " Cheer up, old man ! " The Kid was 
 evidently gathering up a broken thread. 
 " God surely will forgive such a lie. Let me 
 give you the word of a man who strikes a 
 true note : 
 
 " If She have spoken a word, remember thy lips are sealed, 
 And the brand of the Dog is upon him by whom is the 
 
 secret revealed. 
 If there be trouble to Herward, and a lie of the blackest 
 
 can clear, 
 Lie, while thy lips can move or a man is alive to hear. " 
 
144 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 Father Roubeau removed his pipe and re 
 flected. " The man speaks true, but my soul 
 is not vexed with that. The lie and the pen 
 ance stand with God ; but but " 
 
 " What then ? Your hands are clean." 
 
 "Not so. Kid, I have thought much, 
 and yet the thing remains. I knew, and I 
 made her go back." 
 
 The clear note of a robin rang out from 
 the wooded bank, a partridge drummed the 
 call in the distance, a moose lunged noisily 
 in an eddy, but the twain smoked on in 
 silence. 
 
THE WISDOM OF THE TRAIL 
 
 SITKA CHARLEY had achieved the impos 
 sible. Other Indians might have known as 
 much of the wisdom of the trail as did he ; 
 but he alone knew the white man s wisdom, 
 the honor of the trail, and the law. But 
 these things had not come to him in a day. 
 The aboriginal mind is slow to generalize, 
 and many facts, repeated often, are required 
 to compass an understanding. Sitka Charley, 
 from boyhood, had been thrown continually 
 with white men, and as a man he had elected 
 to cast his fortunes with them, expatriating 
 himself, once and for all, from his own 
 people. Even then, respecting, almost vener 
 ating their power, and pondering over it, he 
 had yet to divine its secret essence the 
 honor and the law. And it was only by the 
 cumulative evidence of years that he had 
 finally come to understand. Being an alien, 
 when he did know he knew it better than 
 the white man himself ; being an Indian, he 
 had achieved the impossible. 
 
146 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 And of these things had been bred a cer 
 tain contempt for his own people, a con 
 tempt which he had made it a custom to con 
 ceal, but which now burst forth in a polyglot 
 whirlwind of curses upon the heads of Kah- 
 Chucte and Gowhee. They cringed before 
 him like a brace of snarling wolf-dogs, too 
 cowardly to spring, too wolfish to cover their 
 fangs. They were not handsome creatures. 
 Neither was Sitka Charley. All three were 
 frightful-looking. There was no flesh to 
 their faces ; their cheek bones were massed 
 with hideous scabs which had cracked and 
 frozen alternately under the intense frost ; 
 while their eyes burned luridly with the light 
 which is born of desperation and hunger. 
 Men so situated, beyond the pale of the 
 honor and the law, are not to be trusted. 
 Sitka Charley knew this ; and this was why 
 he had forced them to abandon their rifles 
 with the rest of the camp outfit ten days be 
 fore. His rifle and Captain Eppingwell s were 
 the only ones that remained. 
 
 " Come, get a fire started," he commanded, 
 drawing out the precious match box with its 
 attendant strips of dry birch bark. 
 
 The two Indians fell sullenly to the task 
 
THE WISDOM OF THE TRAIL 147 
 
 of gathering dead branches and underwood. 
 They were weak, and paused often, catching 
 themselves, in the act of stooping, with giddy 
 motions, or staggering to the centre of opera 
 tions with their knees shaking like castanets. 
 After each trip they rested for a moment, as 
 though sick and deadly weary. At times 
 their eyes took on the patient stoicism of 
 dumb suffering ; and again the ego seemed 
 almost bursting forth with its wild cry, " I, 
 I, I want to exist ! " the dominant note of 
 the whole living universe. 
 
 A light breath of air blew from the 
 south, nipping the exposed portions of their 
 bodies and driving the frost, in needles of 
 fire, through fur and flesh to the bones. So, 
 when the fire had grown lusty and thawed a 
 damp circle in the snow about it, Sitka Char 
 ley forced his reluctant comrades to lend a 
 hand in pitching a fly. It was a primitive af 
 fair, merely a blanket, stretched parallel 
 with the fire and to windward of it, at an angle 
 of perhaps forty-five degrees. This shut out 
 the chill wind, and threw the heat backward 
 and down upon those who were to huddle in 
 its shelter. Then a layer of green spruce 
 boughs was spread, that their bodies might 
 
148 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 not come in contact with the snow. When 
 this task was completed, Kah-Chucte and 
 Gowhee proceeded to take care of their feet. 
 Their ice-bound moccasins were sadly worn 
 by much travel, and the sharp ice of the 
 river jams had cut them to rags. Their Si- 
 wash socks were similarly conditioned, and 
 when these had been thawed and removed, 
 the dead-white tips of the toes, in the various 
 stages of mortification, told their simple tale 
 of the trail. 
 
 Leaving the two to the drying of their foot 
 gear, Sitka Charley turned back over the 
 course he had come. He, too, had a mighty 
 longing to sit by the fire and tend his com 
 plaining flesh, but the honor and the law for 
 bade. He toiled painfully over the frozen 
 field, each step a protest, every muscle in re 
 volt. Several times, where the open water 
 between the jams had recently crusted, he 
 was forced to miserably accelerate his move 
 ments as the fragile footing swayed and 
 threatened beneath him. In such places 
 death was quick and easy ; but it was not his 
 desire to endure no more. 
 
 His deepening anxiety vanished as two 
 Indians dragged into view round a bend in 
 
THE WISDOM OF THE TRAIL 149 
 
 the river. They staggered and panted like 
 men under heavy burdens ; yet the packs on 
 their backs were a matter of but few pounds. 
 He questioned them eagerly, and their re 
 plies seemed to relieve him. He hurried on. 
 Next came two white men, supporting be 
 tween them a woman. They also behaved as 
 though drunken, and their limbs shook with 
 weakness. But the woman leaned lightly 
 upon them, choosing to carry herself forward 
 with her own strength. At sight of her, a 
 flash of joy cast its fleeting light across Sitka 
 Charley s face. He cherished a very great 
 regard for Mrs. Eppingwell. He had seen 
 many white women, but this was the first 
 to travel the trail with him. When Captain 
 Eppingwell proposed the hazardous undertak 
 ing and made him an offer for his services, 
 he had shaken his head gravely ; for it was 
 an unknown journey through the dismal vast- 
 nesses of the Northland, and he knew it to 
 be of the kind that try to the uttermost the 
 souls of men. But when he learned that the 
 Captain s wife was to accompany them, he 
 had refused flatly to have anything further 
 to do with it, Had it been a woman of his 
 own race he would have harbored no objec- 
 
150 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 tions ; but these women of the Southland 
 no, no, they were too soft, too tender, for 
 such enterprises. 
 
 Sitka Charley did not know this kind of 
 woman. Five minutes before, he did not 
 even dream of taking charge of the expedi 
 tion ; but when she came to him with her 
 wonderful smile and her straight clean Eng 
 lish, and talked to the point, without plead 
 ing or persuading, he had incontinently 
 yielded. Had there been a softness and ap 
 peal to mercy in the eyes, a tremble to the 
 voice, a taking advantage of sex, he would 
 have stiffened to steel ; instead her clear- 
 searching eyes and clear-ringing voice, her 
 utter frankness and tacit assumption of equal 
 ity, had robbed him of his reason. He felt, 
 then, that this was a new breed of woman ; 
 and ere they had been trail-mates for many 
 days, he knew why the sons of such women 
 mastered the land and the sea, and why the 
 sons of his own womankind could not prevail 
 against them. Tender and soft ! Day after 
 day he watched her, muscle-weary, exhausted, 
 indomitable, and the words beat in upon him 
 in a perennial refrain. Tender and soft! 
 He knew her feet had been born to easy 
 
THE WISDOM OF THE TRAIL 151 
 
 paths and sunny lands, strangers to the moc- 
 casined pain of the North, unkissed by the 
 chill lips of the frost, and he watched and 
 marveled at them twinkling ever through the 
 weary day. 
 
 She had always a smile and a word of cheer, 
 from which not even the meanest packer 
 was excluded. As the way grew darker 
 she seemed to stiffen and gather greater 
 strength, and when Kah-Chucte and Gowhee, 
 who had bragged that they knew every land 
 mark of the way as a child did the skin-bales 
 of the tepee, acknowledged that they knew 
 not where they were, it was she who raised a 
 forgiving voice amid the curses of the men. 
 She had sung to them that night, till they 
 felt the weariness fall from them and were 
 ready to face the future with fresh hope. 
 And when the food failed and each scant 
 stint was measured jealously, she it was who 
 rebelled against the machinations of her hus 
 band and Sitka Charley, and demanded and 
 received a share neither greater nor less than 
 that of the others. 
 
 Sitka Charley was proud to know this wo 
 man. A new richness, a greater breadth, had 
 come into his life with her presence. Hith- 
 
152 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 erto he had been his own mentor, had turned 
 to right or left at no man s beck; he had 
 moulded himself according to his own dic 
 tates, nourished his manhood regardless of 
 all save his own opinion. For the first time 
 he had felt a call from without for the best 
 that was in him. Just a glance of apprecia 
 tion from the clear-searching eyes, a word of 
 thanks from the clear-ringing voice, just a 
 slight wreathing of the lips in the wonderful 
 smile, and he walked with the gods for hours 
 to come. It was a new stimulant to his man 
 hood; for the first time he thrilled with a 
 conscious pride in his wisdom of the trail ; 
 and between the twain they ever lifted the 
 sinking hearts of their comrades. 
 
 The faces of the two men and the woman 
 brightened as they saw him, for after all he 
 was the staff they leaned upon. But Sitka 
 Charley, rigid as was his wont, concealing 
 pain and pleasure impartially beneath an iron 
 exterior, asked them the welfare of the rest, 
 told the distance to the fire, and continued on 
 the back-trip. Next he met a single Indian, 
 unburdened, limping, lips compressed, and 
 eyes set with the pain of a foot in which the 
 
THE WISDOM OF THE TRAIL 153 
 
 quick fought a losing battle with the dead. 
 All possible care had been taken of him, but 
 in the last extremity the weak and unfortu 
 nate must perish, and Sitka Charley deemed 
 his days to be few. The man could not keep 
 up for long, so he gave him rough cheering 
 words. After that came two more Indians, 
 to whom he had allotted the task of helping 
 along Joe, the third white man of the party. 
 They had deserted him. Sitka Charley saw 
 at a glance the lurking spring in their bodies, 
 and knew they had at last cast off his mas 
 tery. So he was not taken unawares when 
 he ordered them back in quest of their aban 
 doned charge, and saw the gleam of the hunt 
 ing-knives that they drew from the sheaths. 
 A pitiful spectacle, three weak men lifting 
 their puny strength in the face of the mighty 
 vastness; but the two recoiled under the 
 fierce rifle-blows of the one, and returned 
 like beaten dogs to the leash. Two hours 
 later, with Joe reeling between them and 
 Sitka Charley bringing up the rear, they 
 came to the fire, where the remainder of the 
 expedition crouched in the shelter of the fly. 
 " A few words, my comrades, before we 
 sleep," Sitka Charley said, after they had de- 
 
154 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 voured their slim rations of unleavened bread. 
 He was speaking to the Indians, in their own 
 tongue, having already given the import to 
 the whites. " A few words, my comrades, 
 for your own good, that ye may yet per 
 chance live. I shall give you the law ; on 
 his own head be the death of him that breaks 
 it. We have passed the Hills of Silence, and 
 we now travel the head-reaches of the Stuart. 
 It may be one sleep, it may be several, it may 
 be many sleeps, but in time we shall come 
 among the Men of the Yukon, who have 
 much grub. It were well that we look to the 
 law. To-day, Kah-Chucte and Gowhee, whom 
 I commanded to break trail, f orgotT they were 
 men, and like frightened children ran away. 
 True, they forgot ; so let us forget. But 
 hereafter let them remember. If it should 
 happen they do not " He touched his rifle 
 carelessly, grimly. " To-morrow they shall 
 carry the flour and see that the white man 
 Joe lies not down by the trail. The cups of 
 flour are counted; should so much as an 
 ounce be wanting at nightfall Do ye un 
 derstand ? To-day there were others that 
 forgot. Moose-Head and Three-Salmon left 
 the white man Joe to lie in the snow. Let 
 
THE WISDOM OF THE TRAIL 155 
 
 them forget no more. With the light of day 
 shall they go forth and break trail. Ye have 
 heard the law. Look well, lest ye break it." 
 
 Sitka Charley found it beyond him to keep 
 the line close up. From Moose-Head and 
 Three-Salmon, who broke trail in advance, 
 to Kah-Chucte, Gowhee, and Joe, it strag 
 gled out over a mile. Each staggered, fell, 
 or rested, as he saw fit. The line of march 
 was a progression through a chain of irregu 
 lar halts. Each drew upon the last remnant 
 of his strength and stumbled onward till it 
 was expended, but in some miraculous way 
 there was always another last remnant. Each 
 time a man fell, it was with the firm belief 
 that he would rise no more ; yet he did rise, 
 and again, and again. The flesh yielded, the 
 will conquered ; but each triumph was a 
 tragedy. The Indian with the frozen foot, 
 no longer erect, crawled forward on hand and 
 knee. He rarely rested, for he knew the pen 
 alty exacted by the frost. Even Mrs. Epping- 
 welFs lips were at last set in a stony smile, 
 and her eyes, seeing, saw not. Often, she 
 stopped, pressing a mittened hand to her 
 heart, gasping and dizzy. 
 
156 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 Joe, the white man, had passed beyond 
 the stage of suffering. He no longer begged 
 to be let alone, prayed to die ; but was soothed 
 and content under the anodyne of delirium. 
 Kah-Chucte and Gowhee dragged him on 
 roughly, venting upon him many a savage 
 glance or blow. To them it was the acme of 
 injustice. Their hearts were bitter with hate, 
 heavy with fear. Why should they cumber 
 their strength with his weakness ? To do so, 
 meant death ; not to do so and they remem 
 bered the law of Sitka Charley, and the rifle. 
 
 Joe fell with greater frequency as the day 
 light waned, and so hard was he to raise 
 that they dropped farther and farther behind. 
 Sometimes all three pitched into the snow, so 
 weak had the Indians become. Yet on their 
 backs was life, and strength, and warmth. 
 Within the flour-sacks were all the potentiali 
 ties of existence. They could not but think 
 of this, and it was not strange, that which 
 came to pass. They had fallen by the side 
 of a great timber- jam where a thousand cords 
 of firewood waited the match. Near by was 
 an air hole through the ice. Kah-Chucte 
 looked on the wood and the water, as did Gow 
 hee ; then they looked on each other. Never 
 
THE WISDOM OF THE TRAIL 157 
 
 a word was spoken. Gowhee struck a fire ; 
 Kah-Chucte filled a tin cup with water and 
 heated it ; Joe babbled of things in another 
 land, in a tongue they did not understand. 
 They mixed flour with the warm water till it 
 was a thin paste, and of this they drank many 
 cups. They did not offer any to Joe ; but 
 he did not mind. He did not mind anything, 
 not even his moccasins, which scorched and 
 smoked among the coals. 
 
 A crystal mist of snow fell about them, 
 softly, caressingly, wrapping them in clinging 
 robes of white. And their feet would have 
 yet trod many trails had not destiny brushed 
 the clouds aside and cleared the air. Nay, ten 
 minutes delay would have been salvation. 
 Sitka Charley, looking back, saw the pillared 
 smoke of their fire, and guessed. And he 
 looked ahead at those who were faithful, and 
 at Mrs. Eppingwell. 
 
 " So, my good comrades, ye have again for 
 gotten that you were men ? Good. Very good. 
 There will be fewer bellies to feed." 
 
 Sitka Charley retied the flour as he spoke, 
 strapping the pack to the one on his own back. 
 He kicked Joe till the pain broke through the 
 
158 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 poor devil s bliss and brought him doddering 
 to his feet. Then he shoved him out upon the 
 trail and started him on his way. The two 
 Indians attempted to slip off. 
 
 " Hold, Gowhee ! And thou, too, Kah- 
 Chucte ! Hath the flour given such strength 
 to thy legs that they may outrun the swift- 
 winged lead ? Think not to cheat the law. 
 Be men for the last time, and be content that 
 ye die full-stomached. Come, step up, back to 
 the timber, shoulder to shoulder. Come ! " 
 
 The two men obeyed, quietly, without fear ; 
 for it is the future which presses upon the 
 man, not the present. 
 
 " Thou, Gowhee, hast a wife and children 
 and a deer-skin lodge in the Chippewyan. 
 What is thy will in the matter? " 
 
 " Give thou her of the goods which are 
 mine by the word of the Captain the blan 
 kets, the beads, the tobacco, the box which 
 makes strange sounds after the manner of the 
 white men. Say that I did die on the trail, 
 but say not how." 
 
 " And thou, Kah-Chucte, who hast nor 
 wife nor child? " 
 
 " Mine is a sister, the wife of the Factor at 
 Koshiin. He beats her, and she is not happy. 
 
THE WISDOM OF THE TRAIL 159 
 
 Give thou her the goods which are mine by 
 the contract, and tell her it were well she go 
 back to her own people. Shouldst thou meet 
 the man, and be so minded, it were a good 
 deed that he should die. He beats her, and 
 she is afraid." 
 
 " Are ye content to die by the law ? " 
 
 " We are." 
 
 " Then good-by, my good comrades. May 
 ye sit by the well-filled pot, in warm lodges, 
 ere the day is done." 
 
 As he spoke, he raised his rifle, and many 
 echoes broke the silence. Hardly had they 
 died away, when other rifles spoke in the 
 distance. Sitka Charley started. There had 
 been more than one shot, yet there was but 
 one other rifle in the party. He gave a fleet 
 ing glance at the men who lay so quietly, 
 smiled viciously at the wisdom of the trail, 
 and hurried on to meet the Men of the 
 Yukon. 
 
THE WIFE OF A KING 
 
 ONCE, when the Northland was very young, 
 the social and civic virtues were remarkable 
 alike for their paucity and their simplicity. 
 When the burden of domestic duties grew 
 grievous, and the fireside mood expanded to 
 a constant protest against its bleak loneliness, 
 the adventurers from the Southland, in lieu 
 of better, paid the stipulated prices and took 
 unto themselves native wives. It was a fore 
 taste of Paradise to the women, for it must 
 be confessed that the white rovers gave far 
 better care and treatment to them than did 
 their Indian copartners. Of course, the white 
 men themselves were satisfied with such deals, 
 as were also the Indian men for that matter. 
 Having sold their daughters and sisters for 
 cotton blankets and obsolete rifles, and traded 
 their warm fur.* for flimsy calico and bad 
 whiskey, the sons of the soil promptly and 
 cheerfully succumbed to quick consumption 
 and other swift diseases correlated with the 
 blessings of a superior civilization. 
 
THE WIFE OF A KING 161 
 
 It was in these days of Arcadian simplicity 
 that Cal Galbraith journeyed through the 
 land and fell sick on the Lower River. It 
 was a refreshing advent in the lives of the 
 good Sisters of the Holy Cross, who gave him 
 shelter and medicine ; though they little 
 dreamed of the hot elixir infused into his 
 veins by the touch of their soft hands and 
 their gentle ministrations. Cal Galbraith be 
 came troubled with strange thoughts, which 
 clamored for attention till he laid eyes on the 
 Mission girl, Madeline. Yet he gave no sign, 
 biding his time patiently. He strengthened 
 with the coming spring, and when the sun 
 rode the heavens in a golden circle, and the 
 joy and throb of life were in all the land, 
 he gathered his still weak body together and 
 departed. 
 
 Now Madeline, the Mission girl, was an or 
 phan. Her white father had failed to give a 
 bald-faced grizzly the trail one day, and had 
 died quickly. Then her Indian mother, hav 
 ing no man to fill the winter cache, had tried 
 the hazardous experiment of waiting till the 
 salmon-run on fifty pounds of flour and half 
 as many of bacon. After that the baby, 
 Chook-ra, went to live with the good Sisters, 
 
162 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 and to be thenceforth known by another 
 name. 
 
 But Madeline still had kinsfolk, the near 
 est being a dissolute uncle who outraged his 
 vitals with inordinate quantities of the white 
 man s whiskey. He strove daily to walk with 
 the gods, and incidentally his feet sought 
 shorter trails to the grave. When sober he 
 suffered exquisite torture. He had no con 
 science. To this ancient vagabond Cal Gal- 
 braith duly presented himself, and they con 
 sumed many words and much tobacco in the 
 conversation that followed. Promises were 
 also made ; and in the end the old heathen 
 took a few pounds of dried salmon and his 
 birch-bark canoe, and paddled away to the 
 Mission of the Holy Cross. 
 
 It is not given the world to know what 
 promises he made and what lies he told, - 
 the Sisters never gossip ; but when he re 
 turned, upon his swarthy chest there was a 
 brass crucifix, and in his canoe his niece Mad 
 eline. That night there was a grand wed 
 ding and a potlach ; so that for two days to 
 follow there was no fishing done by the vil 
 lage. But in the morning Madeline shook 
 the dust of the Lower River from her mocca- 
 
THE WIFE OF A KING 163 
 
 sins, and with her husband, in a poling-boat, 
 went to live on the Upper River in a place 
 known as the Lower Country. And in the 
 years which followed she was a good wife, 
 sharing her husband s hardships and cooking 
 his food. And she kept him in straight 
 trails, till he learned to save his dust and to 
 work mightily. In the end, he struck it rich, 
 and built a cabin in Circle City ; and his hap 
 piness was such that men who came to visit 
 him in his home circle became restless at the 
 sight of it and envied him greatly. 
 
 But the Northland began to mature, and 
 social amenities to make their appearance. 
 Hitherto, the Southland had sent forth its 
 sons ; but it now belched forth a new exodus, 
 this time of its daughters. Sisters and wives 
 they were not ; but they did not fail to put 
 new ideas in the heads of the men, and to 
 elevate the tone of things in ways peculiarly 
 their own. No more did the squaws gather 
 at the dances, go roaring down the centre in 
 the good, old Virginia reels, or make merry 
 with jolly " Dan Tucker." They fell back 
 on their native stoicism, and uncomplainingly 
 watched the rule of their white sisters from 
 the cabins. 
 
164 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 Then another exodus came over the moun 
 tains from the prolific Southland. This time 
 it was of women that became mighty in the 
 land. Their word was law ; their law was 
 steel. They frowned upon the Indian wives, 
 while the other women became mild and 
 walked humbly. There were cowards who 
 became ashamed of their ancient covenants 
 with the daughters of the soil, who looked 
 with a new distaste upon their dark-skinned 
 children ; but there were also others men 
 who remained true and proud of their 
 aboriginal vows. When it became the fash 
 ion to divorce the native wives, Cal Galbraith 
 retained his manhood, and in so doing felt 
 the heavy hand of the women who had come 
 last, knew least, but who ruled the land. 
 
 One day, the Upper Country, which lies 
 far above Circle City, was pronounced rich. 
 Dog-teams carried the news to Salt Water; 
 golden argosies freighted the lure across the 
 North Pacific ; wires and cables sang with 
 the tidings ; and the world heard for the first 
 
 O 
 
 time of the Klondike River and the Yukon 
 Country. 
 
 Cal Galbraith had lived the years quietly. 
 
THE WIFE OF A KING 165 
 
 He had been a good husband to Madeline, 
 and she had blessed him. But somehow dis 
 content fell upon him ; he felt vague yearn 
 ings for his own kind, for the life he had 
 been shut out from, a general sort of desire, 
 which men sometimes feel, to break out and 
 taste the prime of living. Besides, there 
 drifted down the river wild rumors of the 
 wonderful Eldorado, glowing descriptions of 
 the city of logs and tents, and ludicrous 
 accounts of the che-cha-quas who had rushed 
 in and were stampeding the whole country. 
 Circle City was dead. The world had moved 
 on up river and become a new and most mar 
 velous world. 
 
 Cal Galbraith grew restless on the edge of 
 things, and wished to see with his own eyes. 
 So, after the wash-up, he weighed in a couple 
 of hundred pounds of dust on the Com 
 pany s big scales, and took a draft for the 
 same on Dawsori. Then he put Tom Dixon 
 in charge of his mines, kissed Madeline good- 
 by, promised to be back before the first mush- 
 ice ran, and took passage on an up-river 
 steamer. 
 
 Madeline waited, waited through all the 
 three months of daylight. She fed the dogs, 
 
166 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 gave much of her time to young Cal, watched 
 the short summer fade away and the sun be 
 gin its long journey to the south. And she 
 prayed much in the manner of the Sisters 
 of the Holy Cross. The fall came, and with 
 it there was mush-ice on the Yukon, and Cir 
 cle City kings returning to the winter s work 
 at their mines, but no Cal Galbraith. Tom 
 Dixon received a letter, however, for his men 
 sledded up her winter s supply of dry pine. 
 The Company received a letter, for its dog- 
 teams filled her cache with their best provi 
 sions, and she was told that her credit was 
 limitless. 
 
 Through all the ages man has been held 
 the chief instigator of the woes of woman ; 
 but in this case the men held their tongues 
 and swore harshly at one of their number 
 who was away, while the women failed utterly 
 to emulate them. So, without needless de 
 lay, Madeline heard strange tales of Cal 
 Galbraith s doings; also, of a certain Greek 
 dancer who played with men as children did 
 with bubbles. Now Madeline was an Indian 
 woman, and further, she had no woman friend 
 to whom to go for wise counsel. She prayed 
 and planned by turns, and that night, being 
 
THE WIFE OF A KING 167 
 
 quick of resolve and action, she harnessed the 
 dogs, and with young Cal securely lashed to 
 the sled, stole away. 
 
 Though the Yukon still ran free, the eddy- 
 ice was growing, and each day saw the river 
 dwindling to a slushy thread. Save him who 
 has done the like, no man may know what 
 she endured in traveling a hundred miles on 
 the rim-ice ; nor may they understand the 
 toil and hardship of breaking the two hun 
 dred miles of packed ice which remained after 
 the river froze for good. But Madeline was 
 an Indian woman, so she did these things, 
 and one night there came a knock at Male- 
 mute Kid s door. Thereat he fed a team of 
 starving dogs, put a healthy youngster to 
 bed, and turned his attention to an exhausted 
 woman. He removed her ice-bound mocca 
 sins while he listened to her tale, and stuck 
 the point of his knife into her feet that he 
 might see how far they were frozen. 
 
 Despite his tremendous virility, Malemute 
 Kid was possessed of a softer, womanly ele 
 ment, which could win the confidence of a 
 snarling wolf-dog or draw confessions from 
 the most wintry heart. Nor did he seek 
 them. Hearts opened to him as spontane- 
 
168 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 ously as flowers to the sun. Even the priest, 
 Father Roubeau, had been known to confess 
 to him, while the men and women of the 
 Northland were ever knocking at his door, 
 a door from which the latch-string hung 
 always out. To Madeline, he could do no 
 wrong, make no mistake. She had known 
 him from the time she first cast her lot among 
 the people of her father s race; and to her 
 half -barbaric mind it seemed that in him was 
 centred the wisdom of the ages, that between 
 his vision and the future there could be no 
 intervening veil. 
 
 There were false ideals in the land. The 
 social strictures of Dawson were not synony 
 mous with those of the previous era, and the 
 swift maturity of the Northland involved 
 much wrong. Malemute Kid was aware of 
 this, and he had Cal Galbraith s measure ac 
 curately. He knew a hasty word was the 
 father of much evil ; besides, he was minded 
 to teach a great lesson and bring shame upon 
 the man. So Stanley Prince, the young min 
 ing expert, was called into the conference the 
 following night, as was also Lucky Jack Har 
 rington and his violin. That same night, 
 Bettles, who owed a great ^debt to Malemute 
 
THE WIFE OF A KING 169 
 
 Kid, harnessed up Cal Galbraith s dogs, 
 lashed Cal Galbraith, junior, to the sled, and 
 slipped away in the dark for Stuart River. 
 
 ii 
 
 " So ; one two three, one two 
 three. Now reverse ! No, no ! Start up 
 again, Jack. See this way." Prince exe 
 cuted the movement as one should who has 
 led the cotillion. 
 
 " Now ; one two three, one two 
 three. Reverse ! Ah ! that s better. Try 
 it again. I say, you know, you must n t look 
 at your feet. One two three, one two 
 three. Shorter steps ! You are not hang 
 ing to the gee-pole just now. Try it over. 
 There ! that s the way. One two three, 
 one two three." 
 
 Round and round went Prince and Made 
 line in an interminable waltz. The table and 
 stools had been shoved over against the wall 
 to increase the room. Malemute Kid sat on 
 the bunk, chin to knees, greatly interested. 
 Jack Harrington sat beside him, scraping 
 away on his violin and following the dan 
 cers. 
 
 It was a unique situation, the undertaking 
 
170 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 of these three men with the woman. The 
 most pathetic part, perhaps, was the business 
 like way in which they went about it. No 
 athlete was ever trained more rigidly for a 
 coming contest, nor wolf-dog for the harness, 
 than was she. But they had good material, 
 for Madeline, unlike most women of her race, 
 in her childhood had escaped the carrying of 
 heavy burdens and the toil of the trail. Be 
 sides, she was a clean-limbed, willowy crea 
 ture, possessed of much grace which had not 
 hitherto been realized. It was this grace 
 which the men strove to bring out and knock 
 into shape. 
 
 "Trouble with her she learned to dance 
 all wrong," Prince remarked to the bunk, 
 after having deposited his breathless pupil 
 on the table. "She s quick at picking up; 
 yet I could do better had she never danced a 
 step. But say, Kid, I can t understand this." 
 Prince imitated a peculiar movement of the 
 shoulders and head, a weakness Madeline 
 suffered from in walking. 
 
 " Lucky for her she was raised in the Mis 
 sion," Malemute Kid answered. "Packing, 
 you know, the head-strap. Other Indian 
 women have it bad, but she didn t do any 
 
THE WIFE OF A KING 171 
 
 packing till after she married, and then only 
 at first. Saw hard lines with that husband 
 of hers. They went through the Forty Mile 
 famine together." 
 
 " But can we break it ? " 
 
 " Don t know. Perhaps long walks with 
 her trainers will make the riffle. Anyway, 
 they ll take it out some, won t they, Mad 
 eline?" 
 
 The girl nodded assent. If Malemute Kid, 
 who knew all things, said so, why, it was so. 
 That was all there was about it. 
 
 She had come over to them, anxious to be 
 gin again. Harrington surveyed her in quest 
 of her points, much in the same manner men 
 do horses. It certainly was not disappointing, 
 for he asked with sadden interest, " What 
 did that beggarly uncle of yours get any 
 way ? " 
 
 " One rifle, one blanket, twenty bottles of 
 hooch. Kifle broke." She said this last 
 scornfully, as though disgusted at how low 
 her maiden-value had been rated. 
 
 She spoke fair English, with many pecul 
 iarities of her husband s speech, but there 
 was still perceptible the Indian accent, the 
 traditional groping after strange gutturals. 
 
172 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 Even this her instructors had taken in hand, 
 and with no small success, too. 
 
 At the next intermission Prince discovered 
 a new predicament. 
 
 " I say, Kid," he said, " we re wrong, all 
 wrong. She can t learn in moccasins. Put 
 her feet into slippers, and then on to that 
 waxed floor phew ! " 
 
 Madeline raised a foot and regarded her 
 shapeless house-moccasin dubiously. In pre 
 vious winters, both at Circle City and Forty 
 Mile, she had danced many a night away with 
 similar footgear, and there had been nothing 
 the matter. But now well, if there was 
 anything wrong it was for Malemute Kid to 
 know, not her. 
 
 But Malemute Kid did know, and he had 
 a good eye for measures ; so he put on his 
 cap and mittens and went down the hill to 
 pay Mrs. Eppingwell a call. Her husband, 
 Clove Eppingwell, was prominent in the com 
 munity as one of the great Government offi 
 cials. The Kid had noted her slender little 
 foot one night, at the Governor s Ball. And 
 as he also knew her to be as sensible as she 
 was pretty, it was no task to ask of her a cer 
 tain small favor. 
 
THE WIFE OF A KING 173 
 
 On his return, Madeline withdrew for a 
 moment to the inner room. When she re 
 appeared Prince was startled. 
 
 " By Jove ! " he gasped. " Who d V 
 thought it ! The little witch ! Why, my 
 sister " 
 
 " Is an English girl," interrupted Malemute 
 Kid, " with an English foot. This girl comes 
 of a small-footed race. Moccasins just broad 
 ened her feet healthily, while she did not 
 misshape them by running with the dogs in 
 her childhood." 
 
 But this explanation failed utterly to allay 
 Prince s admiration. Harrington s commer 
 cial instinct was touched, and as he looked 
 upon the exquisitely turned foot and ankle, 
 there ran through his mind the sordid list, - 
 " one rifle, one blanket, twenty bottles of 
 hooch" 
 
 Madeline was the wife of a king, a king 
 whose yellow treasure could buy outright a 
 score of fashion s puppets ; yet in all her life 
 her feet had known no gear save red-tanned 
 moosehide. At first she looked in awe at the 
 tiny white satin slippers; but she quickly 
 understood the admiration which shone, man 
 like, in the eyes of the men. Her face flushed 
 
174 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 with pride. For the moment she was drunken 
 with her woman s loveliness ; then she mur 
 mured, with increased scorn, " And one rifle 
 broke ! " 
 
 So the training went on. Every day Male- 
 mute Kid led the girl out on long walks de 
 voted to the correction of her carriage and 
 the shortening of her stride. There was lit 
 tle likelihood of her identity being discovered, 
 for Cal Galbraith and the rest of the Old- 
 Timers were like lost children among the 
 many strangers who had rushed into the land. 
 Besides, the frost of the North has a bitter 
 tongue, and the tender women of the South, 
 to shield their cheeks from its biting caresses, 
 were prone to the use of canvas masks. With 
 faces obscured and bodies lost in squirrel-skin 
 parkas, a mother and daughter, meeting on 
 trail, would pass as strangers. 
 
 The coaching progressed rapidly. At first 
 it had been slow, but later a sudden accelera 
 tion had manifested itself. This began from 
 the moment Madeline tried on the white satin 
 slippers, and in so doing found herself. The 
 pride of her renegade father, apart from any 
 natural self-esteem she might possess, at that 
 instant received its birth. Hitherto, she had 
 
THE WIFE OF A KING 175 
 
 deemed herself a woman of an alien breed, of 
 inferior stock, purchased by her lord s favor. 
 Her husband had seemed to her a god, who 
 had lifted her, through no essential virtues on 
 her part, to his own godlike level. But she 
 had never forgotten, even when young Cal 
 was born, that she was not of his people. As 
 he had been a god, so had his womankind 
 been goddesses. She might have contrasted 
 herself with them, but she had never com 
 pared. It might have been that familiarity 
 bred contempt ; however, be that as it may, 
 she had ultimately come to understand these 
 roving white men, and to weigh them. True, 
 her mind was dark to deliberate analysis, but 
 she yet possessed her woman s clarity of vision 
 in such matters. On the night of the slippers 
 she had measured the bold, open admiration 
 of her three man friends; and for the first 
 time comparison had suggested itself. It was 
 only a foot and an ankle, but but compari 
 son could not, in the nature of things, cease 
 at that point. She judged herself by their 
 standards till the divinity of her white sisters 
 was shattered. After all, they were only 
 women, and why should she not exalt herself 
 to their place ? In doing these things she 
 
176 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 learned where she lacked, and with the know 
 ledge of her weakness came her strength. 
 And so mightily did she strive that her three 
 trainers often marveled late into the night 
 over the eternal mystery of woman. 
 
 In this way Thanksgiving night drew near. 
 At irregular intervals Bettles sent word down 
 from Stuart River regarding the welfare of 
 young Cal. The time of their return was 
 approaching. More than once a casual caller, 
 hearing dance-music and the rhythmic pulse 
 of feet, entered, only to find Harrington 
 scraping away and the other two beating time 
 or arguing noisily over a mooted step. Made 
 line was never in evidence, having precipi 
 tately fled to the inner room. 
 
 On one of these nights Cal Galbraith 
 dropped in. Encouraging news had just 
 come down from Stuart River, and Madeline 
 had surpassed herself not in walk alone, 
 and carriage and grace, but in womanly 
 roguishness. They had indulged in sharp re 
 partee, and she had defended herself bril 
 liantly ; and then, yielding to the intoxica 
 tion of the moment, and of her own power, 
 she had bullied, and mastered, and wheedled, 
 and patronized them with most astonishing 
 
THE WIFE OF A KING 177 
 
 success. And instinctively, involuntarily, 
 they had bowed, not to her beauty, her wis 
 dom, her wit, but to that indefinable some 
 thing in woman to which man yields yet cannot 
 name. The room was dizzy with sheer delight 
 as she and Prince whirled through the last 
 dance of the evening. Harrington was throw 
 ing in inconceivable flourishes, while Male- 
 mute Kid, utterly abandoned, had seized the 
 broom and was executing mad gyrations on 
 his own account. 
 
 At this instant the door shook with a heavy 
 rap-rap, and their quick glances noted the 
 lifting of the latch. But they had survived 
 similar situations before. Harrington never 
 broke a note. Madeline shot through the 
 waiting door to the inner room. The broom 
 went hurtling under the bunk, and by the 
 time Cal Galbraith and Louis Savoy got their 
 heads in, Malemute Kid and Prince were in 
 each other s arms, wildly schottisching down 
 the room. 
 
 As a rule, Indian women do not make a 
 practice of fainting on provocation, but Mad 
 eline came as near to it as she ever had in 
 her life. For an hour she crouched on the 
 floor, listening to the heavy voices of the men 
 
178 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 rumbling up and down in mimic thunder. 
 Like familiar chords of childhood melodies, 
 every intonation, every trick of her husband s 
 voice, swept in upon her, fluttering her heart 
 and weakening her knees till she lay half- 
 fainting against the door. It was well she 
 could neither see nor hear when he took his 
 departure. 
 
 " When do you expect to go back to Cir 
 cle City?" Malemute Kid asked simply. 
 
 " Have n t thought much about it," he re 
 plied. " Don t think till after the ice breaks." 
 
 " And Madeline ? " 
 
 He flushed at the question, and there was 
 a quick droop to his eyes. Malemute Kid 
 could have despised him for that, had he 
 known men less. As it was, his gorge rose 
 against the wives and daughters who had 
 come into the land, and not satisfied with 
 usurping the place of the native women, had 
 put unclean thoughts in the heads of the 
 men and made them ashamed. 
 
 "I guess she s all right," the Circle City 
 king answered hastily, and in an apologetic 
 manner. " Tom Dixon s got charge of my 
 interests, you know, and he sees to it that 
 she has everything she wants." 
 
THE WIFE OF A KING 179 
 
 Malemute Kid laid hand upon his arm, and 
 hushed him suddenly. They had stepped with 
 out. Overhead, the aurora, a gorgeous wanton, 
 flaunted miracles of color; beneath lay the 
 sleeping town. Far below, a solitary dog gave 
 tongue. The king again began to speak, but 
 the Kid pressed his hand for silence. The 
 sound multiplied. Dog after dog took up the 
 strain till the full-throated chorus swayed the 
 night. To him who hears for the first time 
 this weird song, is told the first and greatest 
 secret of the Northland ; to him who has 
 heard it often, it is the solemn knell of lost 
 endeavor. It is the plaint of tortured souls, 
 for in it is invested the heritage of the North, 
 the suffering of countless generations the 
 warning and the requiem to the world s es- 
 trays. 
 
 Cal Galbraith shivered slightly as it died 
 away in half-caught sobs. The Kid read his 
 thoughts openly, and wandered back with him 
 through all the weary days of famine and dis 
 ease ; and with him was also the patient 
 Madeline, sharing his pains and perils, never 
 doubting, never complaining. His mind s re 
 tina vibrated to a score of pictures, stern, 
 clear-cut, and the hand of the Past drew back 
 
180 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 with heavy fingers on his heart. It was the 
 psychological moment. Malemute Kid was 
 half tempted to play his reserve card and win 
 the game ; but the lesson was too mild as yet, 
 and he let it pass. The next instant they had 
 gripped hands, and the king s beaded mocca 
 sins were drawing protests from the outraged 
 snow as he crunched down the hill. 
 
 Madeline in collapse was another woman to 
 the mischievous creature of an hour before, 
 whose laughter had been so infectious and 
 whose heightened color and flashing eyes had 
 made her teachers for the while forget. Weak 
 and nerveless, she sat in the chair just as 
 she had been dropped there by Prince and 
 Harrington. Malemute Kid frowned. This 
 would never do. When the time of meeting 
 her husband came to hand, she must carry 
 things off with high-handed imperiousness. 
 It was very necessary she should do it after 
 the manner of white women, else the victory 
 would be no victory at all. So he talked to 
 her, sternly, without mincing of words, and 
 initiated her into the weaknesses of his own 
 sex, till she came to understand what simple 
 tons men were after all, and why the word 
 of their women was law. 
 
THE WIFE OF A KING 181 
 
 A few days before Thanksgiving night, 
 Malemute Kid made another call on Mrs. 
 Eppingwell. She promptly overhauled her 
 feminine fripperies, paid a protracted visit to 
 the dry -goods department of the P. C. Com 
 pany, and returned with the Kid to make 
 Madeline s acquaintance. After that came a 
 period such as the cabin had never seen be 
 fore, and what with cutting, and fitting, and 
 basting, and stitching, and numerous other 
 wonderful and unknowable things, the male 
 conspirators were more often banished the 
 premises than not. At such times the Opera 
 House opened its double storm-doors to them. 
 So often did they put their heads together, 
 and so deeply did they drink to curious toasts, 
 that the loungers scented unknown creeks of 
 incalculable richness, and it is known that 
 several che-cha-quas and at least one Old- 
 Timer kept their stampeding packs stored 
 behind the bar, ready to hit the trail at a 
 moment s notice. 
 
 Mrs. Eppingwell was a woman of capacity ; 
 so, when she turned Madeline over to her 
 trainers on Thanksgiving night she was so 
 transformed that they were almost afraid of her. 
 Prince wrapped a Hudson Bay blanket about 
 
182 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 her with a mock reverence more real than 
 feigned, while Malemute Kid, whose arm she 
 had taken, found it a severe trial to resume 
 his wonted mentorship. Harrington, with the 
 list of purchase still running through his 
 head, dragged along in the rear, nor opened 
 his mouth once all the way down into the 
 town. When they came to the back door of 
 the Opera House they took the blanket from 
 Madeline s shoulders and spread it on the 
 snow. Slipping out of Prince s moccasins, she 
 stepped upon it in new satin slippers. The 
 masquerade was at its height. She hesitated, 
 but they jerked open the door and shoved 
 her in. Then they ran around to come in by 
 the front entrance. 
 
 in 
 
 " Where is Freda ? " the Old-Timers ques 
 tioned, while the che-cha-quas were equally 
 energetic in asking who Freda was. The ball 
 room buzzed with her name. It was on 
 everybody s lips. Grizzled " sour-dough boys," 
 day-laborers at the mines but proud of their 
 degree, either patronized the spruce-looking 
 tenderfeet and lied eloquently, the " sour 
 dough boys " being specially created to toy 
 
THE WIFE OF A KING 183 
 
 with truth, or gave them savage looks of 
 indignation because of their ignorance. Per 
 haps forty kings of the Upper and Lower 
 Countries were on the floor, each deeming 
 himself hot on the trail and sturdily backing 
 his judgment with the yellow dust of the 
 realm. An assistant was sent to the man at 
 the scales, upon whom had fallen the burden 
 of weighing up the sacks, while several of 
 the gamblers, with the rules of chance at their 
 finger-ends, made up alluring books on the 
 field and favorites. 
 
 Which was Freda ? Time and again the 
 Greek dancer was thought to have been dis 
 covered, but each discovery brought panic to 
 the betting ring and a frantic registering of 
 new wagers by those who wished to hedge. 
 Malemute Kid took an interest in the hunt, 
 his advent being hailed uproariously by the 
 revelers, who knew him to a man. The Kid 
 had a good eye for the trick of a step, and 
 ear for the lilt of a voice, and his private choice 
 was a marvelous creature who scintillated as 
 the " Aurora Borealis." But the Greek 
 dancer was too subtle for even his penetration. 
 The majority of the gold-hunters seemed to 
 have centred their verdict on the " Kussian 
 
184 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 Princess/ who was the most graceful in the 
 room, and hence could be no other than Freda 
 Moloof. 
 
 During a quadrille a roar of satisfaction 
 went up. She was discovered. At previous 
 balls, in the figure " all hands round," Freda 
 had displayed an inimitable step and variation 
 peculiarly her own. As the figure was called, 
 the " Russian Princess " gave the unique 
 rhythm to limb and body. A chorus of I-told- 
 you-so s shook the squared roof-beams, when 
 lo ! it was noticed that the " Aurora Borealis " 
 and another mask, the " Spirit of the Pole," 
 were performing the same trick equally well. 
 And when two twin " Sun-Dogs " and a " Frost 
 Queen " followed suit, a second assistant was 
 dispatched to the aid of the man at the scales. 
 
 Bettles came off trail in the midst of the 
 excitement, descending upon them in a hur 
 ricane of frost. His rimed brows turned to 
 cataracts as he whirled about ; his mustache, 
 still frozen, seemed gemmed with diamonds 
 and turned the light in vari-colored rays ; 
 while the flying feet slipped on the chunks of 
 ice which rattled from his moccasins and Ger 
 man socks. A Northland dance is quite an 
 informal affair, the men of the creeks and 
 
THE WIFE OF A KING 185 
 
 trails having lost whatever fastidiousness they 
 may have at one time possessed; and only 
 in the high official circles are conventions at 
 all observed. Here, caste carried no signifi 
 cance. Millionaires and paupers, dog-drivers 
 and mounted policemen, joined hands with 
 " ladies in the centre," and swept around the 
 circle performing most remarkable capers. 
 Primitive in their pleasures, boisterous and 
 rough, they displayed no rudeness, but rather 
 a crude chivalry as genuine as the most pol 
 ished courtesy. 
 
 In his quest for the Greek dancer, Cal 
 Galbraith managed to get into the same set 
 with the " Russian Princess," toward whom 
 popular suspicion had turned. But by the 
 time he had guided her through one dance, 
 he was willing not only to stake his millions 
 that she was not Freda, but that he had had 
 his arm about her waist before. When or 
 where he could not tell, but the puzzling sense 
 of familiarity so wrought upon him that he 
 turned his attention to the discovery of her 
 identity. Malemute Kid might have aided him 
 instead of occasionally taking the " Princess " 
 for a few turns and talking earnestly to her in 
 low tones. But it was Jack Harrington who 
 
186 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 paid the " Russian Princess" the most assidu 
 ous court. Once he drew Cal Galbraith aside 
 and hazarded wild guesses as to who she was, 
 and explained to him that he was going in 
 to win. This rankled the Circle City king, 
 for man is not by nature monogamies, and he 
 forgot both Madeline and Freda in the new 
 quest. 
 
 It was soon noised about that the " Russian 
 Princess" was not Freda Moloof. Interest 
 deepened. Here was a fresh enigma. They 
 knew Freda though they could not find her, 
 but here was somebody they had found and 
 did not know. Even the women could not 
 place her, and they knew every good dancer 
 in the camp. Many took her for one of the 
 official clique, indulging in a silly escapade. 
 Not a few asserted she would disappear before 
 the unmasking. Others were equally positive 
 that she was the woman reporter of the Kan 
 sas City " Star," come to write them up at 
 ninety dollars per column. And the men at 
 the scales worked busily. 
 
 At one o clock every couple took to the 
 floor. The unmasking began amid laughter 
 and delight, like that of care-free children. 
 There was no end of oh s and all s as mask 
 
THE WIFE OF A KING 187 
 
 after mask was lifted. The scintillating 
 " Aurora Borealis " became the brawny ne- 
 gress whose income from washing the com 
 munity s clothes ran at about five hundred a 
 month. The twin " Sun-Dogs " discovered 
 mustaches on their upper lips, and were recog 
 nized as brother fraction-kings of Eldorado. 
 In one of the most prominent sets, and 
 the slowest in uncovering, was Cal Galbraith 
 with the " Spirit of the Pole." Opposite him 
 was Jack Harrington and the " Russian Prin 
 cess." The rest had discovered themselves, 
 yet the Greek dancer was still missing. All 
 eyes were upon the group. Cal Galbraith, 
 in response to their cries, lifted his partner s 
 mask. Freda s wonderful face and brilliant 
 eyes flashed out upon them. A roar went 
 up, to be hushed suddenly in the new and 
 absorbing mystery of the " Russian Princess." 
 Her face was still hidden, and Jack Harring 
 ton was struggling with her. The dancers 
 tittered on the tiptoes of expectancy. He 
 crushed her dainty costume roughly, and 
 then and then the revelers exploded. The 
 joke was on them. They had danced all 
 night with a tabooed native woman. 
 
 But those that knew, and they were many, 
 
188 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 ceased abruptly, and a hush fell upon the 
 room. Cal Galbraith crossed over with great 
 strides, angrily, and spoke to Madeline in 
 polyglot Chinook. But she retained her 
 composure, apparently oblivious to the fact 
 that she was the cynosure of all eyes, and 
 answered him in English. She showed neither 
 fright nor anger, and Malemute Kid chuckled 
 at her well-bred equanimity. The king felt 
 baffled, defeated ; his common Siwash wife 
 had passed beyond him. 
 
 " Come ! " he said finally. " Come on 
 home." 
 
 "I beg pardon," she replied; "I have 
 agreed to go to supper with Mr. Harrington. 
 Besides, there s no end of dances promised." 
 
 Harrington extended his arm to lead her 
 away. He evinced not the slightest disin 
 clination toward showing his back, but Male- 
 mute Kid had by this time edged in closer. 
 The Circle City king was stunned. Twice 
 his hand dropped to his belt, and twice the 
 Kid gathered himself to spring ; but the re 
 treating couple passed safely through the sup 
 per-room door, where canned oysters were 
 spread at five dollars the plate. The crowd 
 sighed audibly, broke up into couples, and 
 
THE WIFE OF A KING 189 
 
 followed them. Freda pouted and went in 
 with Cal Galbraith; but she had a good heart 
 and a sure tongue, and she spoiled his oysters 
 for him. What she said is of no importance, 
 but his face went red and white at intervals, 
 and he swore repeatedly and savagely at 
 himself. 
 
 The supper-room was rilled with a pande 
 monium of voices, which ceased suddenly as 
 Cal Galbraith stepped over to his wife s table. 
 Since the unmasking considerable weights of 
 dust had been placed as to the outcome. 
 Everybody watched with breathless interest. 
 Harrington s blue eyes were steady, but under 
 the over-hanging tablecloth a Smith & Wes 
 son balanced on his knee. Madeline looked 
 up, casually, with little interest. 
 
 " May may I have the next round dance 
 with you ? " the king stuttered. 
 
 The wife of the king glanced at her card 
 and inclined her head. 
 
AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH 
 
 THE sleds were singing their eternal lament 
 to the creaking of the harnesses and the tin 
 kling bells of the leaders ; but the men and 
 doors were tired and made no sound. The 
 
 o 
 
 trail was heavy with new-fallen snow, and 
 they had come far, and the runners, bur 
 dened with flint-like quarters of frozen moose, 
 clung tenaciously to the unpacked surface 
 and held back with a stubbornness almost 
 human. Darkness was coming on, but there 
 was no camp to pitch that night. The snow 
 fell gently through the pulseless air, not in 
 flakes, but in tiny frost crystals of delicate 
 design. It was very warm, barely ten 
 below zero, and the men did not mind. 
 Meyers and Bettles had raised their ear- 
 flaps, while Malemute Kid had even taken 
 off his mittens. 
 
 The dogs had been fagged out early in the 
 afternoon, but they now began to show new 
 
AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH 191 
 
 vigor. Among the more astute there was a 
 certain restlessness, an impatience at the 
 restraint of the traces, an indecisive quick 
 ness of movement, a sniffing of snouts and 
 pricking of ears. These became incensed at 
 their more phlegmatic brothers, urging them 
 on with numerous sly nips on their hinder- 
 quarters. Those, thus chidden, also con 
 tracted and helped spread the contagion. 
 At last, the leader of the foremost sled ut 
 tered a sharp whine of satisfaction, crouching 
 lower in the snow and throwing himself 
 against the collar. The rest followed suit. 
 There was an ingathering of back-bands, a 
 tightening of traces ; the sleds leaped for 
 ward, and the men clung to the gee-poles, 
 violently accelerating the uplift of their feet 
 that they might escape going under the run 
 ners. The weariness of the day fell from 
 them, and they whooped encouragement to 
 the dogs. The animals responded with joy 
 ous yelps. They were swinging through the 
 gathering darkness at a rattling gallop. 
 
 " Gee ! Gee ! " the men cried, each in turn, 
 as their sleds abruptly left the main-trail, 
 heeling over on single runners like luggers 
 on the wind. 
 
192 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 Then came a hundred yards dash to the 
 lighted parchment window, which told its 
 own story of the home cabin, the roaring 
 Yukon stove, and the steaming pots of tea. 
 But the home cabin had been invaded. Three 
 score huskies chorused defiance, and as many 
 furry forms precipitated themselves upon the 
 dogs which drew the first sled. The door was 
 flung open, and a man, clad in the scarlet tunic 
 of the Northwest Police, waded knee-deep 
 among the furious brutes, calmly and impar 
 tially dispensing soothing justice with the butt 
 end of a dog- whip. After that, the men shook 
 hands ; and in this wise was Malemute Kid 
 welcomed to his own cabin by a stranger. 
 
 Stanley Prince, who should have welcomed 
 him, and who was responsible for the Yukon 
 stove and hot tea aforementioned, was busy 
 with his guests. There were a dozen or so of 
 them, as nondescript a crowd as ever served 
 the Queen in the enforcement of her laws 
 or the delivery of her mails. They were 
 of many breeds, but their common life had 
 formed of them a certain type, a lean 
 and wiry type, with trail-hardened muscles, 
 and sun-browned faces, and untroubled souls 
 which gazed frankly forth, clear-eyed and 
 
AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH 193 
 
 steady. They drove the dogs of the Queen, 
 wrought fear in the hearts of her enemies, ate 
 of her meagre fare, and were happy. They 
 had seen life, and done deeds, and lived ro 
 mances ; but they did not know it. 
 
 And they were very much at home. Two 
 of them were sprawled upon Malemute Kid s 
 bunk, singing chansons which their French 
 forbears sang in the days when first they 
 entered the Northwest-land and mated with 
 its Indian women. Bettles bunk had suf 
 fered a similar invasion, and three or four 
 lusty voyageurs worked their toes among 
 its blankets as they listened to the tale of 
 one who had served on the boat brigade 
 with Wolseley when he fought his way to 
 Khartoum. And when he tired, a cowboy 
 told of courts and kings and lords and ladies 
 he had seen when Buffalo Bill toured the 
 capitals of Europe. In a corner, two half- 
 breeds, ancient comrades in a lost campaign, 
 mended harnesses and talked of the days 
 when the Northwest flamed with insurrection 
 and Louis Reil was king. 
 
 Rough jests and rougher jokes went up 
 and down, and great hazards by trail and 
 river were spoken of in the light of com- 
 
194 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 monplaces, only to be recalled by virtue of 
 some grain of humor or ludicrous happen 
 ing. Prince was led away by these uncrowned 
 heroes who had seen history made, who re 
 garded the great and the romantic as but the 
 ordinary and the incidental in the routine of 
 life. He passed his precious tobacco among 
 them with lavish disregard, and rusty chains 
 of reminiscence were loosened, and forgotten 
 odysseys resurrected for his especial benefit. 
 
 When conversation dropped and the travel 
 ers filled the last pipes and unlashed their 
 tight-rolled sleeping-furs, Prince fell back 
 upon his comrade for further information. 
 
 " Well, you know what the cowboy is," 
 Malemute Kid answered, beginning to unlace 
 his moccasins ; "and it s not hard to guess the 
 British blood in his bed-partner. As for the 
 rest, they re all children of the coureurs du 
 bois, mingled with God knows how many 
 other bloods. The two turning in by the 
 door are the regulation breeds or bois 
 brules. That lad with the worsted breech 
 scarf notice his eyebrows and the turn of 
 his jaw shows a Scotchman wept in his 
 mother s smoky tepee. And that handsome- 
 looking fellow putting the capote under his 
 
AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH 195 
 
 head is a French half -breed, you heard 
 him talking ; he does n t like the two In 
 dians turning in next to him. You see, when 
 the f breeds rose under Reil the full-bloods 
 kept the peace, and they ve not lost much 
 love for one another since." 
 
 " But I say, what s that glum-looking fel 
 low by the stove ? I 11 swear he can t talk 
 English. He has n t opened his mouth all 
 night." 
 
 " You re wrong. He knows English well 
 enough. Did you follow his eyes when he 
 listened ? I did. But he s neither kith nor 
 kin to the others. When they talked their 
 own patois you could see he did n t under 
 stand. I ve been wondering myself what he 
 is. Let s find out." 
 
 " Fire a couple of sticks into the stove ! " 
 Malemute Kid commanded, raising his voice 
 and looking squarely at the man in question. 
 
 He obeyed at once. 
 
 "Had discipline knocked into him some 
 where," Prince commented in a low tone. 
 
 Malemute Kid nodded, took off his socks, 
 and picked his way among the recumbent 
 men to the stove. There he hung his damp 
 footgear among a score or so of mates. 
 
196 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 " When do you expect to get to Dawson ? " 
 he asked tentatively. 
 
 The man studied him a moment before 
 replying. " They say seventy-five mile. So ? 
 Maybe two days." 
 
 The very slightest accent was perceptible, 
 while there was no awkward hesitancy or 
 groping for words. 
 
 " Been in the country before ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Northwest Territory ? " 
 
 Yes." 
 
 " Born there ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Well, where the devil were you born ? 
 You re none of these." Malemute Kid 
 swept his hand over the dog-drivers, even in 
 cluding the two policemen who had turned 
 into Prince s bunk. " Where did you come 
 from? I ve seen faces like yours before, 
 though I can t remember just where." 
 
 " I know you," he irrelevantly replied, at 
 once turning the drift of Malemute Kid s 
 questions. 
 
 "Where? Ever see me?" 
 
 " No ; your partner, him priest, Pastilik, 
 long time ago. Him ask me if I see you, 
 
AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH 197 
 
 Malemnte Kid. Him give me grub. I no 
 stop long. You hear him speak bout me ? " 
 
 " Oh ! you re the fellow that traded the 
 otter skins for the dogs ? " 
 
 The man nodded, knocked out his pipe, 
 and signified his disinclination for conversa 
 tion by rolling up in his furs. Malemute Kid 
 blew out the slush-lamp and crawled under 
 the blankets with Prince. 
 
 " Well, what is he ? " 
 
 "Don t know turned me off, somehow, 
 and then shut up like a clam. But he s a 
 fellow to whet your curiosity. I ve heard 
 of him. All the Coast wondered about him 
 eight years ago. Sort of mysterious, you 
 know. He came down out of the North, in 
 the dead of winter, many a thousand miles 
 from here, skirting Bering Sea and traveling 
 as though the devil were after him. No one 
 ever learned where he came from, but he 
 must have come far. He was badly travel- 
 worn when he got food from the Swedish 
 missionary on Golovin Bay and asked the 
 way south. We heard of this afterward. 
 Then he abandoned the shore-line, heading 
 right across Norton Sound. Terrible weather, 
 snowstorms and high winds, but he pulled 
 
198 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 through where a thousand other men would 
 
 o 
 
 have died, missing St. Michael s and making 
 the land at Pastilik. He d lost all but two 
 dogs, and was nearly gone with starvation. 
 
 " He was so anxious to go on that Father 
 Koubeau fitted him out with grub ; but he 
 could n t let him have any dogs, for he was 
 only waiting my arrival to go on a trip him 
 self. Mr. Ulysses knew too much to start 
 on without animals, and fretted around for 
 several days. He had on his sled a bunch of 
 beautifully cured otter skins, sea-otters, you 
 know, worth their weight in gold. There 
 was also at Pastilik an old Shylock of a Kus- 
 sian trader, who had dogs to kill. Well, 
 they didn t dicker very long, but when the 
 Strange One headed south again, it was in 
 the rear of a spanking dog-team. Mr. Shy- 
 lock, by the way, had the otter skins. I saw 
 them, and they were magnificent. We fig 
 ured it up and found the dogs brought him 
 at least five hundred apiece. And it was n t 
 as if the Strange One did n t know the value 
 of sea-otter ; he was an Indian of some sort, 
 and what little he talked showed he d been 
 among white men. 
 
 " After the ice passed out of the Sea, word 
 
AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH 199 
 
 came up from Nunivak Island that he d gone 
 in there for grub. Then he dropped from 
 sight, and this is the first heard of him in 
 eight years. Now where did he come from ? 
 and what was he doing there ? and why did 
 he come from there ? He s Indian, he s 
 been nobody knows where, and he s had dis 
 cipline, which is unusual for an Indian. An 
 other mystery of the North for you to solve, 
 Prince." 
 
 " Thanks, awfully ; but I ve got too many 
 on hand as it is," he replied. 
 
 Malemute Kid was already breathing heav 
 ily; but the young mining engineer gazed 
 straight up through the thick darkness, wait 
 ing for the strange orgasm which stirred his 
 blood to die away. And when he did sleep, 
 his brain worked on, and for the nonce he, 
 too, wandered through the white unknown, 
 struggled with the dogs on endless trails, and 
 saw men live, and toil, and die like men. 
 
 The next morning, hours before daylight, 
 the dog-drivers and policemen pulled out for 
 Dawson. But the powers that saw to her 
 Majesty s interests, and ruled the destinies of 
 her lesser creatures, gave the mailmen little 
 
200 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 rest; for a week later they appeared at 
 Stuart River, heavily burdened with letters 
 for Salt Water. However, their dogs had 
 been replaced by fresh ones ; but then, they 
 were dogs. 
 
 The men had expected some sort of a lay 
 over in which to rest up ; besides, this Klon 
 dike was a new section of the Northland, 
 and they had wished to see a little something 
 of the Golden City where dust flowed like 
 water, and dance halls rang with never end 
 ing revelry. But they dried their socks and 
 smoked their evening pipes with much the 
 same gusto as on their former visit, though 
 one or two bold spirits speculated on deser 
 tion and the possibility of crossing the un 
 explored Rockies to the east, and thence, by 
 the Mackenzie Valley, of gaining their old 
 stamping-grounds in the Chippewyan Coun 
 try. Two or three even decided to return to 
 their homes by that route when their terms 
 of service had expired, and they began to lay 
 plans forthwith, looking forward to the haz 
 ardous undertaking in much the same way a 
 city-bred man would to a day s holiday in the 
 woods. 
 
 He of the Otter Skins seemed very restless, 
 
AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH 201 
 
 though he took little interest in the discus 
 sion, and at last he drew Malemute Kid to 
 one side and talked for some time in low tones. 
 Prince cast curious eyes in their direction, and 
 the mystery deepened when they put on caps 
 and mittens, and went outside. When they 
 returned, Malemute Kid placed his gold-scales 
 on the table, weighed out the matter of sixty 
 ounces, and transferred them to the Strange 
 One s sack. Then the chief of the dog- 
 drivers joined the conclave, and certain busi 
 ness was transacted with him. The next day 
 the gang went on up river, but He of the 
 Otter Skins took several pounds of grub and 
 turned his steps back toward Dawson. 
 
 " Did n t know what to make of it," said 
 Malemute Kid in response to Prince s queries ; 
 " but the poor beggar wanted to be quit of 
 the service for some reason or other at 
 least it seemed a most important one to him, 
 though he wouldn t let on what. You see, 
 it s just like the army ; he signed for two 
 years, and the only way to get free was to 
 buy himself out. He could n t desert and 
 then stay here, and he was just wild to re 
 main in the country. Made up his mind 
 
202 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 when he got to Dawson, he said ; but no 
 one knew him, had n t a cent, and I was the 
 only one he d spoken two words with. So 
 he talked it over with the Lieutenant-Gov- 
 ernor, and made arrangements in case he 
 could get the money from me loan, you 
 know. Said he d pay back in the year, and 
 if I wanted, would put me onto something 
 rich. Never d seen it, but knew it was rich. 
 " And talk ! why, when he got me outside 
 he was ready to weep. Begged and pleaded ; 
 got down in the snow to me till I hauled 
 him out of it. Palavered around like a crazy 
 man. Swore he s worked to this very end 
 for years and years, and could n t bear to be 
 disappointed now. Asked him what end, 
 but he would n t say. Said they might keep 
 him on the other half of the trail and he 
 would n t get to Dawson in two years, and 
 then it would be too late. Never saw a man 
 take on so in my life. And when I said I d 
 let him have it, had to yank him out of the 
 snow again. Told him to consider it in the 
 light of a grub-stake. Think he d have it ? 
 No, sir ! Swore he d give me all he found, 
 make me rich beyond the dreams of avarice, 
 and all such stuff. Now a man who puts his 
 
AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH 203 
 
 life and time against a grub-stake ordinarily 
 finds it hard enough to turn over half of 
 what he finds. Something behind all this, 
 Prince ; just you make a note of it. We 11 
 hear of him if he stays in the country " 
 
 " And if he does n t ? " 
 
 " Then my good nature gets a shock, and 
 I m sixty some odd ounces out." 
 
 The cold weather had come on with the 
 long nights, and the sun had begun to play 
 his ancient game of peekaboo along the 
 southern snow-line ere aught was heard of 
 Malemute Kid s grub-stake. And then, one 
 bleak morning in early January, a heavily 
 laden dog-train pulled into his cabin below 
 Stuart Eiver. He of the Otter Skins was 
 there, and with him walked a man such as 
 the gods have almost forgotten how to fash 
 ion. Men never talked of luck and pluck and 
 five-hundred-dollar dirt without bringing in 
 the name of Axel Gunderson ; nor could tales 
 of nerve or strength or daring pass up and 
 down the camp-fire without the summoning 
 of his presence. And when the conversation 
 flagged, it blazed anew at mention of the 
 woman who shared his fortunes. 
 
204 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 As has been noted, in the making of Axel 
 Gunderson the gods had remembered their 
 old-time cunning, and cast him after the 
 manner of men who were born when the 
 world was young. Full seven feet he tow 
 ered in his picturesque costume which marked 
 a king of Eldorado. His chest, neck, and 
 limbs were those of a giant. To bear his 
 three hundred pounds of bone and muscle, 
 his snowshoes were greater by a generous 
 yard than those of other men. Rough-hewn, 
 with rugged brow and massive jaw and un 
 flinching eyes of palest blue, his face told the 
 tale of one who knew but the law of might. 
 Of the yellow of ripe corn silk, his frost- 
 incrusted hair swept like day across the 
 night, and fell far down his coat of bear 
 skin. A vague tradition of the sea seemed 
 to cling about him, as he swung down the 
 narrow trail in advance of the dogs ; and he 
 brought the butt of his dog-whip against 
 Malemute Kid s door as a Norse sea rover, on 
 southern foray, might thunder for admittance 
 at the castle gate. 
 
 Prince bared his womanly arms and 
 kneaded sour-dough bread, casting, as he 
 did so, many a glance at the three guests, 
 
AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH 205 
 
 three guests the like of which might never 
 come under a man s roof in a lifetime. The 
 Strange One, whom Malemute Kid had sur- 
 named Ulysses, still fascinated him ; but 
 his interest chiefly gravitated between Axel 
 Gunderson and Axel Gunderson s wife. She 
 felt the day s journey, for she had softened 
 in comfortable cabins during the many days 
 since her husband mastered the wealth of 
 frozen pay-streaks, and she was tired. She 
 rested against his great breast like a slender 
 flower against a wall, replying lazily to Male- 
 mute Kid s good-natured banter, and stirring 
 Prince s blood strangely with an occasional 
 sweep of her deep, dark eyes. For Prince 
 was a man, and healthy, and had seen few 
 women in many months. And she was older 
 than he, and an Indian besides. But she was 
 different from all native wives he had met : 
 she had traveled, had been in his coun 
 try among others, he gathered from the con 
 versation ; and she knew most of the things 
 the women of his own race knew, and much 
 more that it was not in the nature of things 
 for them to know. She could make a meal 
 of sun-dried fish or a bed in the snow ; yet 
 she teased them with tantalizing details of 
 
206 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 many-course dinners, and caused strange in 
 ternal dissensions to arise at the mention of 
 various quondam dishes which they had well- 
 nigh forgotten. She knew the ways of the 
 moose, the bear, and the little blue fox, and 
 of the wild amphibians of the Northern seas; 
 she was skilled in the lore of the woods and 
 the streams, and the tale writ by man and 
 bird and beast upon the delicate snow crust 
 was to her an open book ; yet Prince caught 
 the appreciative twinkle in her eye as she 
 read the Rules of the Camp. These rules 
 had been fathered by the Unquenchable Bet- 
 ties at a time when his blood ran high, and 
 were remarkable for the terse simplicity of 
 their humor. Prince always turned them to 
 the wall before the arrival of ladies ; but who 
 could suspect that this native wife Well, 
 it was too late now. 
 
 This, then, was the wife of Axel Gunder- 
 son, a woman whose name and fame had 
 traveled with her husband s, hand in hand, 
 through all the Northland. At table, Male- 
 mute Kid baited her with the assurance of 
 an old friend, and Prince shook off the shy 
 ness of first acquaintance and joined in. But 
 she held her own in the unequal contest, while 
 
AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH 207 
 
 her husband, slower in wit, ventured naught 
 but applause. And he was very proud of 
 her ; his every look and action revealed the 
 magnitude of the place she occupied in his 
 life. He of the Otter Skins ate in silence, 
 forgotten in the merry battle ; and long ere 
 the others were done he pushed back from 
 the table and went out among the dogs. Yet 
 all too soon his fellow travelers drew on their 
 mittens and parkas, and followed him. 
 
 There had been no snow for many days, 
 and the sleds slipped along the hard-packed 
 Yukon trail as easily as if it had been glare 
 ice. Ulysses led the first sled ; with the sec 
 ond came Prince and Axel Gunderson s wife ; 
 while Malemute Kid and the yellow-haired 
 giant brought up the third. 
 
 "It s only a hunch, Kid," he said; 
 " but I think it s straight. He s never been 
 there, but he tells a good story, and shows a 
 map I heard of when I was in the Kootenay 
 country, years ago. I d like to have you go 
 along ; but he s a strange one, and swore 
 point-blank to throw it up if any one was 
 brought in. But when I come back you 11 get 
 first tip, and I 11 stake you next to me, and 
 give you a half share in the town site besides. 
 
208 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 " No ! no ! " he cried, as the other strove 
 to interrupt. " I m running this, and before 
 I m done it 11 need two heads. If it s all 
 right, why it ll be a second Cripple Creek, 
 man ; do you hear ? a second Cripple 
 Creek ! It s quartz, you know, not placer ; 
 and if we work it right we 11 corral the whole 
 thing, millions upon millions. I ve heard 
 of the place before, and so have you. We 11 
 build a town thousands of workmen 
 good waterways steamship lines big car 
 rying trade light-draught steamers for 
 head - reaches survey a railroad, perhaps 
 sawmills electric - light plant do our 
 own banking commercial company syn 
 dicate Say! just you hold your hush till 
 I get back ! " 
 
 The sleds came to a halt where the trail 
 crossed the mouth of Stuart River. An un 
 broken sea of frost, its wide expanse stretched 
 away into the unknown east. The snow- 
 shoes were withdrawn from the lashings of 
 the sleds. Axel Gunderson shook hands and 
 stepped to the fore, his great webbed shoes 
 sinking a fair half yard into the feathery sur 
 face and packing the snow so the dogs should 
 not wallow. His wife fell in behind the last 
 
AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH 209 
 
 sled, betraying long practice in the art of 
 handling the awkward footgear. The still 
 ness was broken with cheery farewells; the 
 dogs whined; and He of the Otter Skins 
 talked with his whip to a recalcitrant wheeler. 
 An hour later, the train had taken on the 
 likeness of a black pencil crawling in a long, 
 straight line across a mighty sheet of fools 
 cap. 
 
 ii 
 
 One night, many weeks later, Malemute 
 Kid and Prince fell to solving chess problems 
 from the torn page of an ancient magazine. 
 The Kid had just returned from his Bonanza 
 properties, and was resting up preparatory to 
 a long moose hunt. Prince too had been on 
 creek and trail nearly all winter, and had 
 grown hungry for a blissful week of cabin 
 life. 
 
 " Interpose the black knight, and force the 
 king. No, that won t do. See, the next 
 
 move " 
 
 "Why advance the pawn two squares? 
 Bound to take it in transit, and with the 
 bishop out of the way " 
 
 " But hold on ! That leaves a hole, 
 and" 
 
210 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 " No ; it s protected. Go ahead ! You 11 
 see it works." 
 
 It was very interesting. Somebody knocked 
 at the door a second time before Malemute 
 Kid said, " Come in." The door swung open. 
 Something staggered in. Prince caught one 
 square look, and sprang to his feet. The 
 horror in his eyes caused Malemute Kid 
 to whirl about ; and he too was startled, 
 ihough he had seen bad things before. The 
 thing tottered blindly toward them. Prince 
 edged away till he reached the nail from 
 which hung his Smith & Wesson. 
 
 " My God ! what is it ? " he whispered to 
 Malemute Kid. 
 
 " Don t know. Looks like a case of freez 
 ing and no grub," replied the Kid, sliding 
 away in the opposite direction. " Watch 
 out ! It may be mad," he warned, coming 
 back from closing the door. 
 
 The thing advanced to the table. The 
 
 o 
 
 bright flame of the slush-lamp caught its eye. 
 It was amused, and gave voice to eldritch 
 cackles which betokened mirth. Then, sud 
 denly, he for it was a man swayed back, 
 with a hitch to his skin trousers, and began 
 to sing a chanty, such as men lift when they 
 
AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH 211 
 
 swing around the capstan circle and the sea 
 snorts in their ears : 
 
 " Yan-kee ship come down de ri-ib-er, 
 
 Pull ! iny bully boys ! Pull ! 
 D yeh want to know de captain ru-uns her ? 
 
 Pull ! my bully boys ! Pull ! 
 Jon-a-than Jones ob South Caho-li-in-a, 
 
 Pull! my bully" 
 
 He broke off abruptly, tottered with a wolf 
 ish snarl to the meat-shelf, and before they 
 could intercept was tearing with his teeth at a 
 chunk of raw bacon. The struggle was fierce 
 between him and Malemute Kid ; but his mad 
 strength left him as suddenly as it had come, 
 and he weakly surrendered the spoil. Between 
 them they got him upon a stool, where he 
 sprawled with half his body across the table. 
 A small dose of whiskey strengthened him, 
 so that he could dip a spoon into the sugar 
 caddy which Malemute Kid placed before him. 
 After his appetite had been somewhat cloyed, 
 Prince, shuddering as he did so, passed him a 
 mug of weak beef tea. 
 
 The creature s eyes were alight with a som 
 bre frenzy, which blazed and waned with 
 every mouthful. There was very little skin 
 to the face. The face, for that matter, sunken 
 and emaciated, bore very little likeness to 
 
212 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 human countenance. Frost after frost had bit 
 ten deeply, each depositing its stratum of scab 
 upon the half-healed scar that went before. 
 This dry, hard surface was of a bloody-black 
 color, serrated by grievous cracks wherein 
 the raw red flesh peeped forth. His skin 
 garments were dirty and in tatters, and the 
 fur of one side was singed and burned away, 
 showing where he had lain upon his fire. 
 
 Malemute Kid pointed to where the sun 
 tanned hide had been cut away, strip by strip, 
 the grim signature of famine. 
 
 " Who are you ? " slowly and dis 
 tinctly enunciated the Kid. 
 
 The man paid no heed. 
 
 " Where do you come from ? " 
 
 " Yan-kee ship come down de ri-ib-er," 
 was the quavering response. 
 
 " Don t doubt the beggar came down the 
 river," the Kid said, shaking him in an en 
 deavor to start a more lucid flow of talk. 
 
 But the man shrieked at the contact, clap 
 ping a hand to his side in evident pain. He 
 rose slowly to his feet, half leaning on the 
 table. 
 
 " She laughed at me so with the hate 
 in her eye ; and she would not come." 
 
AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH 213 
 
 His voice died away, and he was sinking 
 back when Malemute Kid gripped him by 
 the wrist, and shouted, " Who ? Who would 
 not come ? " 
 
 " She, Unga. She laughed, and struck at 
 me, so, and so. And then " 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " And then " 
 
 " And then what ? " 
 
 " And then he lay very still, in the snow, 
 a long time. He is still in the snow." 
 
 The two men looked at each other help 
 lessly. 
 
 " Who is in the snow ? " 
 
 " She, Unga. She looked at me with the 
 hate in her eye, and then " 
 
 Yes, yes." 
 
 "And then she took the knife, so; and 
 once, twice she was weak. I traveled very 
 slow. And there is much gold in that place, 
 very much gold." 
 
 " Where is Unga ? " For all Malemute Kid 
 knew, she might be dying a mile away. He 
 shook the man savagely, repeating again and 
 again, "Where is Unga ? Who is Unga? " 
 
 " She is in the snow." 
 
 "Go on ! " The Kid was pressing his 
 wrist cruelly. 
 
214 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 "So I would be in the snow 
 but - - 1 had a debt to pay. 
 It was heavy I had a debt 
 to pay a - - debt to - - pay I - 
 had " The faltering monosyllables ceased, 
 as he fumbled in his pouch and drew forth 
 a buckskin sack. " A debt to pay 
 five pounds of gold grub stake 
 -Mai e-- mute-- Kid- -I"- The 
 exhausted head dropped upon the table ; nor 
 could Malemute Kid rouse it again. 
 
 " It s Ulysses," he said quietly, tossing 
 the bag of dust on the table. " Guess it s 
 all day with Axel Gunderson and the woman. 
 Come on, let s get him between the blankets. 
 He s Indian ; he 11 pull through, and tell a 
 tale besides." 
 
 As they cut his garments from him, near 
 his right breast could be seen two unhealed, 
 hard-lipped knife thrusts. 
 
 in 
 
 " I will talk of the things which were, in 
 my own way ; but you will understand. I 
 will begin at the beginning, and tell of my 
 self and the woman, and, after that, of the 
 
 man." 
 
AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH 215 
 
 He of the Otter Skins drew over to the 
 stove as do men who have been deprived 
 of fire and are afraid the Promethean gift 
 may vanish at any moment. Malemute Kid 
 pricked up the slush-lamp, and placed it so 
 its light might fall upon the face of the nar 
 rator. Prince slid his body over the edge of 
 the bunk and joined them. 
 
 " I am Naass, a chief, and the son of a 
 chief, born between a sunset and a rising, on 
 the dark seas, in my father s oomiak. All 
 of a night the men toiled at the paddles, and 
 the women cast out the waves which threw in 
 upon us, and we fought with the storm. The 
 salt spray froze upon my mother s breast till 
 her breath passed with the passing of the 
 tide. But I, I raised my voice with the 
 wind and the storm, and lived. 
 
 " We dwelt in Akatan" 
 
 " Where ? " asked Malemute Kid. 
 
 " Akatan, which is in the Aleutians ; Aka 
 tan, beyond Chignik, beyond Kardalak, be 
 yond Unimak. As I say, we dwelt in Aka 
 tan, which lies in the midst of the sea on the 
 edge of the world. We farmed the salt seas 
 for the fish, the seal, and the otter ; and our 
 homes shouldered about one another on the 
 
216 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 rocky strip between the rim of the forest and 
 the yellow beach where our kayaks lay. We 
 were not many, and the world was very 
 small. There were strange lands to the east, 
 islands like Akatan ; so we thought all 
 the world was islands, and did not mind. 
 
 " I was different from my people. In the 
 sands of the beach were the crooked timbers 
 and wave-warped planks of a boat such as 
 my people never built; and I remember on 
 the point of the island which overlooked the 
 ocean three ways there stood a pine tree 
 which never grew there, smooth and straight 
 and tall. It is said the two men came to 
 that spot, turn about, through many days, 
 and watched with the passing of the light. 
 These two men came from out of the sea in 
 the boat which lay in pieces on the beach. 
 And they were white like you, and weak as 
 the little children when the seal have gone 
 away and the hunters come home empty. I 
 know of these things from the old men and 
 the old women, who got them from their fa 
 thers and mothers before them. These strange 
 white men did not take kindly to our ways at 
 first, but they grew strong, what of the fish 
 and the oil, and fierce. And they built them 
 
AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH 217 
 
 each his own house, and took the pick of 
 our women, and in time children came. Thus 
 he was born who was to become the father of 
 my father s father. 
 
 " As I said, I was different from my peo 
 ple, for I carried the strong, strange blood of 
 this white man who came out of the sea. It 
 is said we had other laws in the days before 
 these men ; but they were fierce and quarrel 
 some, and fought with our men till there were 
 no more left who dared to fight. Then they 
 made themselves chiefs, and took away our 
 old laws and gave us new ones, insomuch 
 that the man was the son of his father, and 
 not his mother, as our way had been. They 
 also ruled that the son, firstborn, should have 
 all things which were his father s before him, 
 and that the brothers and sisters should shift 
 for themselves. And they gave us other 
 laws. They showed us new ways in the 
 catching of fish and the killing of bear which 
 were thick in the woods ; and they taught us 
 to lay by bigger stores for the time of fam 
 ine. And these things were good. 
 
 " But when they had become chiefs, and 
 there were no more men to face their anger, 
 they fought, these strange white men, each 
 
218 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 with the other. And the one whose blood I 
 carry drove his seal spear the length of an 
 arm through the other s body. Their chil 
 dren took up the fight, and their children s 
 children ; and there was great hatred between 
 them, and black doings, even to my time, so 
 that in each family but one lived to pass down 
 the blood of them that went before. Of my 
 blood I was alone ; of the other man s there 
 was but a girl, Unga, who lived with her 
 mother. Her father and my father did not 
 come back from the fishing one night ; but 
 afterward they washed up to the beach on 
 the big tides, and they held very close to 
 each other. 
 
 " The people wondered, because of the 
 hatred between the houses, and the old men 
 shook their heads and said the fight would 
 go on when children were born to her and 
 children to me. They told me this as a boy, 
 till I came to believe, and to look upon Unga 
 as a foe, who was to be the mother of children 
 which were to fight with mine. I thought of 
 these things day by day, and when I grew to a 
 stripling I came to ask why this should be so. 
 And they answered, We do not know, but 
 that in such way your fathers did. And I 
 
AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH 219 
 
 marveled that those which were to come should 
 fight the battles of those that were gone, and 
 in it I could see no right. But the people 
 said it must be, and I was only a stripling. 
 
 " And they said I must hurry, that my 
 blood might be the older and grow strong be 
 fore hers. This was easy, for I was head 
 man, and the people looked up to me because 
 of the deeds and the laws of my fathers, and 
 the wealth which was mine. Any maiden 
 would come to me, but I found none to my 
 liking. And the old men and the mothers 
 of maidens told me to hurry, for even then 
 were the hunters bidding high to the mother 
 of Unga ; and should her children grow 
 strong before mine, mine would surely die. 
 
 " Nor did I find a maiden till one night 
 coming back from the fishing. The sunlight 
 was lying, so, low and full in the eyes, the 
 wind free, and the kayaks racing with the 
 white seas. Of a sudden the kayak of Unga 
 came driving past me, and she looked upon 
 me, so, with her black hair flying like a cloud 
 of night and the spray wet on her cheek. 
 As I say, the sunlight was full in the eyes, 
 and I was a stripling ; but somehow it was 
 all clear, and I knew it to be the call of kind 
 
220 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 to kind. As she whipped ahead she looked 
 back within the space of two strokes, 
 looked as only the woman Unga could look, 
 
 and again I knew it as the call of kind. 
 The people shouted as we ripped past the 
 lazy oomiaks and left them far behind. But 
 she was quick at the paddle, and my heart 
 was like the belly of a sail, and I did not 
 gain. The wind freshened, the sea whitened, 
 and, leaping like the seals on the windward 
 breech, we roared down the golden pathway 
 of the sun." 
 
 Naass was crouched half out of his stool, 
 in the attitude of one driving a paddle, as he 
 ran the race anew. Somewhere across the 
 stove he beheld the tossing kayak and the 
 flying hair of Unga. The voice of the wind 
 was in his ears, and its salt beat fresh upon 
 his nostrils. 
 
 " But she made the shore, and ran up the 
 sand, laughing, to the house of her mother. 
 And a great thought came to me that night, 
 
 a thought worthy of him that was chief 
 over all the people of Akatan. So, when the 
 moon was up, I went down to the house of 
 her mother, and looked upon the goods of 
 Yash-Noosh, which were piled by the door, 
 
AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH 221 
 
 the goods of Yash-Noosh, a strong hunter 
 who had it in mind to be the father of the 
 children of Unga. Other young men had piled 
 their goods there, and taken them away again ; 
 and each young man had made a pile greater 
 than the one before. 
 
 " And I laughed to the moon and the stars, 
 and went to my own house where my wealth 
 was stored. And many trips I made, till my 
 pile was greater by the fingers of one hand 
 than the pile of Yash-Noosh. There were 
 fish, dried in the sun and smoked ; and forty 
 hides of the hair seal, and half as many of the 
 fur, and each hide was tied at the mouth and 
 big-bellied with oil ; and ten skins of bear 
 which I killed in the woods when they came 
 out in the spring. And there were beads and 
 blankets and scarlet cloths, such as I got in 
 trade from the people who lived to the east, 
 and who got them in trade from the people 
 who lived still beyond in the east. And I 
 looked upon the pile of Yash-Noosh and 
 laughed ; for I was head man in Akatan, and 
 my wealth was greater than the wealth of all 
 my young men, and my fathers had done 
 deeds, and given laws, and put their names 
 for all time in the mouths of the people. 
 
222 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 " So, when the morning came, I went down 
 to the beach, casting out of the corner of my 
 eye at the house of the mother of Unga. 
 My offer yet stood untouched. And the wo 
 men smiled, and said sly things one to the 
 other. I wondered, for never had such a 
 price been offered ; and that night I added 
 more to the pile, and put beside it a kayak 
 of well-tanned skins which never yet had swam 
 in the sea. But in the day it was yet there, 
 open to the laughter of all men. The mother 
 of Unga was crafty, and I grew angry at the 
 shame in which I stood before my people. 
 So that night I added till it became a great 
 pile, and I hauled up my oomiak, which was 
 of the value of twenty kayaks. And in the 
 morning there was no pile. 
 
 " Then made I preparation for the wedding, 
 and the people that lived even to the east 
 came for the food of the feast and the potlach 
 token. Unga was older than I by the age of 
 four suns in the way we reckoned the years. 
 I was only a stripling ; but then I was a chief, 
 and the son of a chief, and it did not matter. 
 
 " But a ship shoved her sails above the 
 floor of the ocean, and grew larger with the 
 breath of the wind. From her scuppers she 
 
AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH 223 
 
 ran clear water, and the men were in haste 
 and worked hard at the pumps. On the bow 
 stood a mighty man, watching the depth of 
 the water and giving commands with a voice 
 of thunder. His eyes were of the pale blue 
 of the deep waters, and his head was maned 
 like that of a sea lion. And his hair was yel 
 low, like the straw of a southern harvest or 
 the manila rope-yarns which sailormen plait. 
 
 " Of late years we had seen ships from 
 afar, but this was the first to come to the 
 beach of Akatan. The feast was broken, 
 and the women and children fled to the 
 houses, while we men strung our bows and 
 waited with spears in hand. But when the 
 ship s forefoot smelt the beach the strange 
 men took no notice of us, being busy with 
 their own work. With the falling of the tide 
 they careened the schooner and patched a 
 great hole in her bottom. So the women 
 crept back, and the feast went on. 
 
 " When the tide rose, the sea wanderers 
 kedged the schooner to deep water, and then 
 came among us. They bore presents and were 
 friendly ; so I made room for them, and out 
 of the largeness of my heart gave them tokens 
 such as I gave all the guests ; for it was my 
 
224 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 wedding day, and I was head man in Akatan. 
 And he with the mane of the sea lion was 
 there, so tall and strong that one looked to 
 see the earth shake with the fall of his feet. 
 He looked much and straight at Unga, with 
 his arms folded, so, and stayed till the sun 
 went away and the stars came out. Then he 
 went down to his ship. After that I took 
 Unga by the hand and led her to my own 
 house. And there was singing and great 
 laughter, and the women said sly things, after 
 the manner of women at such times. But we 
 did not care. Then the people left us alone 
 and went home. 
 
 " The last noise had not died away, when 
 the chief of the sea wanderers came in by the 
 door. And he had with him black bottles, 
 from which we drank and made merry. You 
 see, I was only a stripling, and had lived all 
 my days on the edge of the world. So my 
 blood became as fire, and my heart as light 
 as the froth that flies from the surf to the 
 cliff. Unga sat silent among the skins in the 
 corner, her eyes wide, for she seemed to fear. 
 And he with the mane of the sea lion looked 
 upon her straight and long. Then his men 
 came in with bundles of goods, and he piled 
 
AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH 225 
 
 before me wealth such as was not in all Aka- 
 tan. There were guns, both large and small, 
 and powder and shot and shell, and bright 
 axes and knives of steel, and cunning tools, 
 and strange things the like of which I had 
 never seen. When he showed me by sign 
 that it was all mine, I thought him a great 
 man to be so free ; but he showed me also 
 that Unga was to go away with him in his 
 ship. Do you understand ? that Unga was 
 to go away with him in his ship. The blood 
 of my fathers flamed hot on the sudden, and 
 I made to drive him through with my spear. 
 But the spirit of the bottles had stolen the 
 life from my arm, and he took me by the neck, 
 so, and knocked my head against the wall of 
 the house. And I was made weak like a new 
 born child, and my legs would no more stand 
 under me. Unga screamed, and she laid hold 
 of the things of the house with her hands, till 
 they fell all about us as he dragged her to the 
 door. Then he took her in his great arms, 
 and when she tore at his yellow hair laughed 
 with a sound like that of the big bull seal in 
 the rut. 
 
 " I crawled to the beach and called upon 
 my people ; but they were afraid. Only Yash- 
 
226 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 Noosh was a man, and they struck him on the 
 head with an oar, till he lay with his face in 
 the sand and did not move. And they raised 
 the sails to the sound of their songs, and the 
 ship went away on the wind. 
 
 " The people said it was good, for there 
 would be no more war of the bloods in Aka- 
 tan ; but I said never a word, waiting till the 
 time of the full moon, when I put fish and oil 
 in my kayak, and went away to the east. I saw 
 many islands and many people, and I, who 
 had lived on the edge, saw that the world was 
 very large. I talked by signs ; but they had 
 not seen a schooner nor a man with the mane 
 of a sea lion, and they pointed always to the 
 east. And I slept in queer places, and ate 
 odd things, and met strange faces. Many 
 laughed, for they thought me light of head ; 
 but sometimes old men turned my face to the 
 light and blessed me, and the eyes of the 
 young women grew soft as they asked me of 
 the strange ship, and Unga, and the men 
 of the sea. 
 
 " And in this manner, through rough seas 
 and great storms, I came to Unalaska. There 
 were two schooners there, but neither was the 
 one I sought. So I passed on to the east, 
 
AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH 227 
 
 with the world growing ever larger, and in 
 the Island of Unamok there was no word of 
 the ship, nor in Kadiak, nor in Atognak. 
 And so I came one day to a rocky land, 
 where men dug great holes in the mountain. 
 And there was a schooner, but not my 
 schooner, and men loaded upon it the rocks 
 which they dug. This I thought childish, 
 for all the world was made of rocks ; but they 
 gave me food and set me to work. When 
 the schooner was deep in the water, the cap 
 tain gave me money and told me to go ; but 
 I asked which way he went, and he pointed 
 south. I made signs that I would go with 
 him ; and he laughed at first, but then, being 
 short of men, took me to help work the ship. 
 So I came to talk after their manner, and to 
 heave on ropes, and to reef the stiff sails in 
 sudden squalls, and to take my turn at the 
 wheel. But it was not strange, for the blood 
 of my fathers was the blood of the men of 
 the sea. 
 
 " I had thought it an easy task to find him 
 I sought, once I got among his own people ; 
 and when we raised the land one day, and 
 passed between a gateway of the sea to a 
 port, I looked for perhaps as many schooners 
 
228 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 as there were fingers to my hands. But the 
 ships lay against the wharves for miles, packed 
 like so many little fish; and when I went 
 among them to ask for a man with the mane 
 of a sea lion, they laughed, and answered me 
 in the tongues of many peoples. And I 
 found that they hailed from the uttermost 
 parts of the earth. 
 
 "And I went into the city to look upon 
 the face of every man. But they were like 
 the cod when they run thick on the banks, 
 and I could not count them. And the noise 
 smote upon me till I could not hear, and my 
 head was dizzy with much movement. So I 
 went on and on, through the lands which 
 sang in the warm sunshine ; where the har 
 vests lay rich on the plains; and where great 
 cities were fat with men that lived like 
 women, with false words in their mouths and 
 their hearts black with the lust of gold. And 
 all the while my people of Akatan hunted 
 and fished, and were happy in the thought 
 that the world was small. 
 
 " But the look in the eyes of Unga coming 
 home from the fishing was with me always, 
 and I knew I would find her when the time 
 was met. She walked down quiet lanes in 
 
AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH 229 
 
 the dusk of the evening, or led me chases 
 across the thick fields wet with the morning 
 dew, and there was a promise in her eyes 
 such as only the woman Unga could give. 
 
 " So I wandered through a thousand cities. 
 Some were gentle and gave me food, and 
 others laughed, and still others cursed; but I 
 kept my tongue between my teeth, and went 
 strange ways and saw strange sights. Some 
 times, I, who was a chief and the son of a 
 chief, toiled for men, men rough of speech 
 and hard as iron, who wrung gold from the 
 sweat and sorrow of their fellow men. Yet 
 no word did I get of my quest, till I came 
 back to the sea like a homing seal to the 
 rookeries. But this was at another port, in 
 another country which lay to the north. And 
 there I heard dim tales of the yellow-haired 
 sea wanderer, and I learned that he was a 
 hunter of seals, and that even then he was 
 abroad on the ocean. 
 
 " So I shipped on a seal schooner with the 
 lazy Siwashes, and followed his trackless trail 
 to the north where the hunt was then warm. 
 And we were away weary months, and spoke 
 many of the fleet, and heard much of the wild 
 doings of him I sought ; but never once did 
 
230 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 we raise him above the sea. We went north, 
 even to the Pribyloffs, and killed the seals in 
 herds on the beach, and brought their warm 
 bodies aboard till our scuppers ran grease 
 and blood and no man could stand upon the 
 deck. Then were we chased by a ship of 
 slow steam, which fired upon us with great 
 guns. But we put on sail till the sea was 
 over our decks and washed them clean, and 
 lost ourselves in a fog. 
 
 " It is said, at this time, while we fled with 
 fear at our hearts, that the yellow-haired sea 
 wanderer put into the Pribyloffs, right to the 
 factory, and while the part of his men held the 
 servants of the company, the rest loaded ten 
 thousand green skins from the salt-houses. I 
 say it is said, but I believe ; for in the voy 
 ages I made on the coast with never a meet 
 ing, the northern seas rang with his wildness 
 and daring, till the three nations which have 
 lands there sought him with their ships. 
 And I heard of Unga, for the captains sang 
 loud in her praise, and she was always with 
 him. She had learned the ways of his peo 
 ple, they said, and was happy. But I knew 
 better, knew that her heart harked back to 
 her own people by the yellow beach of Akatan. 
 
AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH 231 
 
 " So, after a long time, I went back to the 
 port which is by a gateway of the sea, and 
 there I learned that he had gone across the 
 girth of the great ocean to hunt for the seal 
 to the east of the warm land which runs 
 south from the Russian Seas. And I, who 
 was become a sailorman, shipped with men of 
 his own race, and went after him in the hunt 
 of the seal. And there were few ships off 
 that new land ; but we hung on the flank of 
 the seal pack and harried it north through all 
 the spring of the year. And when the cows 
 were heavy with pup and crossed the Russian 
 line, our men grumbled and were afraid. For 
 there was much fog, and every day men were 
 lost in the boats. They would not work, so 
 the captain turned the ship back toward the 
 way it came. But I knew the yellow-haired 
 sea wanderer was unafraid, and would hang 
 by the pack, even to the Russian Isles, where 
 few men go. So I took a boat, in the black 
 of night, when the lookout dozed on the 
 
 O 
 
 fok slehead, and went alone to the warm, 
 long land. And I journeyed south to meet 
 the men by Yeddo Bay, who are wild and 
 unafraid. And the Yoshiwara girls were 
 small, and bright like steel, and good to look 
 
232 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 upon ; but I could not stop, for I knew that 
 Unga rolled on the tossing floor by the rook 
 eries of the north. 
 
 " The men by Yeddo Bay had met from 
 the ends of the earth, and had neither gods 
 nor homes, sailing under the flag of the Japa 
 nese. And with them I went to the rich 
 beaches of Copper Island, where our salt-piles 
 became high with skins. And in that silent 
 sea we saw no man till we were ready to come 
 away. Then, one day, the fog lifted on the 
 edge of a heavy wind, and there jammed 
 down upon us a schooner, with close in her 
 wake the cloudy funnels of a Russian man- 
 of-war. We fled away on the beam of the 
 wind, with the schooner jamming still closer 
 and plunging ahead three feet to our two. 
 And upon her poop was the man with the 
 mane of the sea lion, pressing the rails under 
 with the canvas and laughing in his strength 
 of life. And Unga was there, I knew her 
 on the moment, but he sent her below 
 when the cannons began to talk across the 
 sea. As I say, with three feet to our two, till 
 we saw the rudder lift green at every jump, 
 and I swinging on to the wheel and cursing, 
 with my back to the Russian shot. For we 
 
AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH 233 
 
 knew he had it in mind to run before us, 
 that he might get away while we were caught. 
 And they knocked our masts out of us till we 
 dragged into the wind like a wounded gull ; 
 but he went on over the edge of the sky-line, 
 he and Unga. 
 
 " What could we ? The fresh hides spoke 
 for themselves. So they took us to a Kussian 
 port, and after that to a lone country, where 
 they set us to work in the mines to dig salt. 
 And some died, and and some did not 
 die." 
 
 Naass swept the blanket from his shoul 
 ders, disclosing the gnarled and twisted flesh, 
 marked with the unmistakable striations of 
 the knout. Prince hastily covered him, for 
 it was not nice to look upon. 
 
 " We were there a weary time ; and some 
 times men got away to the south, but they 
 always came back. So, when we who hailed 
 from Yeddo Bay rose in the night and took 
 the guns from the guards, we went to the 
 north. And the land was very large, with 
 plains, soggy with water, and great forests. 
 And the cold came, with much snow on the 
 ground, and no man knew the way. Weary 
 months we journeyed through the endless for- 
 
234 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 est, I do not remember, now, for there was 
 little food and often we lay down to die. But 
 at last we came to the cold sea, and but three 
 were left to look upon it. One had shipped 
 from Yeddo as captain, and he knew in his 
 head the lay of the great lands, and of the 
 place where men may cross from one to the 
 other on the ice. And he led us, I do 
 not know, it was so long, till there were 
 but two. When we came to that place we 
 found five of the strange people which live 
 in that country, and they had dogs and 
 skins, and we were very poor. We fought 
 in the snow till they died, and the captain 
 died, and the dogs and skins were mine. 
 Then I crossed on the ice, which was broken, 
 and once I drifted till a gale from the west 
 put me upon the shore. And after that, 
 Golovin Bay, Pastilik, and the priest. Then 
 south, south, to the warm sunlands where 
 first I wandered. 
 
 " But the sea was no longer fruitful, and 
 those who went upon it after the seal went to 
 little profit and great risk. The fleets scat 
 tered, and the captains and the men had no 
 word of those I sought. So I turned away 
 from the ocean which never rests, and went 
 
AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH 235 
 
 among the lands, where the trees, the houses, 
 and the mountains sit always in one place 
 and do not move. I journeyed far, and came 
 to learn many things, even to the way of 
 reading and writing from books. It was 
 well I should do this, for it came upon me 
 that Unga must know these things, and that 
 some day, when the time was met we 
 you understand, when the time was met. 
 
 " So I drifted, like those little fish which 
 raise a sail to the wind, but cannot steer. 
 But my eyes and my ears were open always, 
 and I went among men who traveled much, 
 for I knew they had but to see those I 
 sought, to remember. At last there came 
 a man, fresh from the mountains, with pieces 
 of rock in which the free gold stood to the 
 size of peas, and he had heard, he had met, 
 he knew them. They were rich, he said, and 
 lived in the place where they drew the gold 
 from the ground. 
 
 " It was in a wild country, and very far 
 away; but in time I came to the camp, 
 hidden between the mountains, where men 
 worked night and day, out of the sight of 
 the sun. Yet the time was not come. I 
 listened to the talk of the people. He had 
 
236 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 gone away, they had gone away, to 
 England, it was said, in the matter of bring 
 ing men with much money together to form 
 companies. I saw the house they had lived 
 in ; more like a palace, such as one sees in 
 the old countries. In the nighttime I crept 
 in through a window that I might see in 
 what manner he treated her. I went from 
 room to room, and in such way thought 
 kings ajid queens must live, it was all so 
 very good. And they all said he treated her 
 like a queen, and many marveled as to what 
 breed of woman she was ; for there was other 
 blood in her veins, and she was different from 
 the women of Akatan, and no one knew her 
 for what she was. Ay, she was a queen ; but 
 I was a chief, and the son of a chief, and I 
 had paid for her an untold price of skin and 
 boat and bead. 
 
 66 But w r hy so many words? I was a sailor- 
 man, and knew the w r ay of the ships on the 
 seas. I followed to England, and then to 
 other countries. Sometimes I heard of them 
 by word of mouth, sometimes I read of them 
 in the papers ; yet never once could I come 
 by them, for they had much money, and 
 traveled fast, while I was a poor man. Then 
 
AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH 237 
 
 came trouble upon them, and their wealth 
 slipped away, one day, like a curl of smoke. 
 The papers were full of it at the time ; but 
 after that nothing was said, and I knew they 
 had gone back where more gold could be got 
 from the ground. 
 
 " They had dropped out of the world, 
 being now poor ; and so I wandered from 
 camp to camp, even north to the Kootenay 
 Country, where I picked up the cold scent. 
 They had come and gone, some said this 
 way, and some that, and still others that 
 they had gone to the Country of the Yukon. 
 And I went this way, and I went that, ever 
 journeying from place to place, till it seemed 
 I must grow weary of the world which was 
 so large. But in the Kootenay I traveled a 
 bad trail, and a long trail, with a ( breed of 
 the Northwest, who saw fit to die when the 
 famine pinched. He had been to the Yukon 
 by an unknown way over the mountains, and 
 when he knew his time was near gave me the 
 map and the secret of a place where he swore 
 by his gods there was much gold. 
 
 " After that all the world began to flock 
 into the north. I was a poor man ; I sold 
 myself to be a driver of dogs. The rest you 
 
238 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 know. I met him and her in Dawson. She 
 did not know me, for I was only a stripling, 
 and her life had been large, so she had no 
 time to remember the one who had paid for 
 her an untold price. 
 
 " So ? You bought me from my term of 
 service. I went back to bring things about 
 in my own way ; for I had waited long, and 
 now that I had my hand upon him was in no 
 hurry. As I say, I had it in mind to do my 
 own way ; for I read back in my life, through 
 all I had seen and suffered, and remembered 
 the cold and hunger of the endless forest by 
 the Russian Seas. As you know, I led him 
 into the east, him and Unga, into the 
 east where many have gone and few returned. 
 I led them to the spot where the bones and 
 the curses of men lie with the gold which 
 they may not have. 
 
 " The way was long and the trail unpacked. 
 Our dogs were many and ate much ; nor could 
 our sleds carry till the break of spring. We 
 must come back before the river ran free. So 
 here and there we cached grub, that our 
 sleds might be lightened and there be no 
 chance of famine on the back trip. At the 
 McQuestion there were three men, and near 
 
AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH 239 
 
 them we built a cache, as also did we at 
 the Mayo, where was a hunting-camp of a 
 dozen Pellys which had crossed the divide 
 from the south. After that, as we went on 
 into the east, we saw no men ; only the sleep 
 ing river, the moveless forest, and the White 
 Silence of the North. As I say, the way was 
 long and the trail unpacked. Sometimes, in 
 a day s toil, we made no more than eight 
 miles, or ten, and at night we slept like dead 
 men. And never once did they dream that 
 I was Naass, head man of Akatan, the righter 
 of wrongs. 
 
 " We now made smaller caches, and in the 
 nighttime it was a small matter to go back on 
 the trail we had broken, and change them in 
 such way that one might deem the wolverines 
 the thieves. Again, there be places where 
 there is a fall to the river, and the water is 
 unruly, and the ice makes above and is eaten 
 away beneath. In such a spot the sled I 
 drove broke through, and the dogs ; and to 
 him and Unga it was ill luck, but no more. 
 And there was much grub on that sled, and 
 the dogs the strongest. But he laughed, for 
 he was strong of life, and gave the dogs that 
 were left little grub till we cut them from the 
 
240 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 harnesses, one by one, and fed them to their 
 mates. We would go home light, he said, 
 traveling and eating from cache to cache, 
 with neither dogs nor sleds ; which was 
 true, for our grub was very short, and the 
 last dog died in the traces the night we came 
 to the gold and the bones and the curses of 
 men. 
 
 " To reach that place, and the map spoke 
 true, in the heart of the great mountains, 
 we cut ice steps against the wall of a divide. 
 One looked for a valley beyond, but there 
 was no valley ; the snow spread away, level 
 as the great harvest plains, and here and 
 there about us mighty mountains shoved 
 their white heads among the stars. And 
 midway on that strange plain which should 
 have been a valley, the earth and the snow 
 fell away, straight down toward the heart of 
 the world. Had we not been sailormen our 
 heads would have swung round with the 
 sight ; but we stood on the dizzy edge that 
 we might see a way to get down. And on 
 one side, and one side only, the wall had 
 fallen away till it was like the slope of the 
 decks in a topsail breeze. I do not know 
 why this thing should be so, but it was so. 
 
AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH 241 
 
 It is the mouth of hell/ he said ; let us go 
 down. And we went down. 
 
 66 And on the bottom there was a cabin, 
 built by some man, of logs which he had 
 cast down from above. It was a very old 
 cabin ; for men had died there alone at dif 
 ferent times, and on pieces of birch bark 
 which were there we read their last words 
 and their curses. One had died of scurvy ; 
 another s partner had robbed him of his last 
 grub and powder and stolen away ; a third 
 had been mauled by a bald-face grizzly ; a 
 fourth had hunted for game and starved, 
 and so it went, and they had been loath to 
 leave the gold, and had died by the side of 
 it in one way or another. And the worthless 
 gold they had gathered yellowed the floor of 
 the cabin like in a dream. 
 
 " But his soul was steady, and his head 
 clear, this man I had led thus far. We 
 have nothing to eat, he said, and we will 
 only look upon this gold, and see whence it 
 comes and how much there be. Then we 
 will go away quick, before it gets into our 
 eyes and steals away our judgment. And in 
 this way we may return in the end, with more 
 grub, and possess it all. So we looked upon 
 
242 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 the great vein, which cut the wall of the pit 
 as a true vein should ; and we measured it, 
 and traced it from above and below, and 
 drove the stakes of the claims and blazed the 
 trees in token of our rights. Then, our knees 
 shaking with lack of food, and a sickness in 
 our bellies, and our hearts chugging close to 
 our mouths, we climbed the mighty wall for 
 the last time and turned our faces to the 
 back trip. 
 
 " The last stretch we dragged Unga be 
 tween us, and we fell often, but in the end 
 we made the cache. And lo, there was no 
 grub. It was well done, for he thought it 
 the wolverines, and damned them and his 
 gods in the one breath. But Unga was 
 brave, and smiled, and put her hand in his, 
 till I turned away that I might hold myself. 
 We will rest by the fire, she said, till 
 morning, and we will gather strength from 
 our moccasins/ So we cut the tops of our 
 moccasins in strips, and boiled them half of 
 the night, that we might chew them and 
 swallow them. And in the morning we 
 talked of our chance. The next cache was 
 five days journey ; we could not make it. 
 We must find game. 
 
AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH 243 
 
 " We will go forth and hunt/ he said. 
 
 " Yes, said I, we will go forth and 
 hunt. 
 
 " And he ruled that Unga stay by the 
 fire and save her strength. And we went 
 forth, he in quest of the moose, and I to the 
 cache I had changed. But I ate little, so 
 they might not see in me much strength. 
 And in the night he fell many times as he 
 drew into camp. And I too made to suffer 
 great weakness, stumbling over my snow- 
 shoes as though each step might be my last. 
 And we gathered strength from our moc 
 casins. 
 
 " He was a great man. His soul lifted 
 his body to the last; nor did he cry aloud, 
 save for the sake of Unga. On the second 
 day I followed him, that I might not miss the 
 end. And he lay down to rest often. That 
 night he was near gone ; but in the morning 
 he swore weakly and went forth again. He 
 was like a drunken man, and I looked many 
 times for him to give up ; but his was the 
 strength of the strong, and his soul the soul 
 of a giant, for he lifted his body through all 
 the weary day. And he shot two ptarmigan, 
 but would not eat them. He needed no fire; 
 
244 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 they meant life ; but his thought was for 
 Unga, and he turned toward camp. He no 
 longer walked, but crawled on hand and knee 
 through the snow. I came to him, and read 
 death in his eyes. Even then it was not too 
 late to eat of the ptarmigan. He cast away 
 his rifle, and carried the birds in his mouth 
 like a dog. I walked by his side, upright. 
 And he looked at me during the moments he 
 
 o 
 
 rested, and wondered that I was so strong. 
 I could see it, though he no longer spoke ; 
 and when his lips moved, they moved with 
 out sound. As I say, he was a great man, 
 and my heart spoke for softness ; but I read 
 back in my life, and remembered the cold 
 and hunger of the endless forest by the Rus 
 sian Seas. Besides, Unga was mine, and I 
 had paid for her an untold price of skin and 
 boat and bead. 
 
 " And in this manner we came through 
 the white forest, with the silence heavy upon 
 us like a damp sea mist. And the ghosts of 
 the past were in the air and all about us ; and 
 I saw the yellow beach of Akatan, and the 
 kayaks racing home from the fishing, and 
 the houses on the rim of the forest. And 
 the men who had made themselves chiefs 
 
AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH 245 
 
 were there, the lawgivers whose blood I bore, 
 and whose blood I had wedded in Unga. Ay, 
 and Yash-Noosh walked with me, the wet 
 sand in his hair, and his war spear, broken 
 as he fell upon it, still in his hand. And I 
 knew the time was met, and saw in the eyes 
 of Unga the promise. 
 
 " As I say, we came thus through the for 
 est, till the smell of the camp smoke was in 
 our nostrils. And I bent above him, and 
 tore the ptarmigan from his teeth. He 
 turned on his side and rested, the wonder 
 mounting in his eyes, and the hand which 
 was under slipping slow toward the knife at 
 his hip. But I took it from him, smiling 
 close in his face. Even then he did not 
 understand. So I made to drink from black 
 bottles, and to build high upon the snow a 
 pile of goods, and to live again the things 
 which happened on the night of my marriage. 
 I spoke no word, but he understood. Yet 
 was he unafraid. There was a sneer to his 
 lips, and cold anger, and he gathered new 
 strength with the knowledge. It was not 
 far, but the snow was deep, and he dragged 
 himself very slow. Once, he lay so long, I 
 turned him over and gazed into his eyes. 
 
246 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 And sometimes he looked forth, and some 
 times death. And when I loosed him he 
 struggled on again. In this way we came 
 to the fire. Unga was at his side on the 
 instant. His lips moved, without sound ; 
 then he pointed at me, that Unga might 
 understand. And after that he lay in the 
 snow, very still, for a long while. Even now 
 is he there in the snow. 
 
 " I said no word till I had cooked the 
 ptarmigan. Then I spoke to her, in her own 
 tongue, which she had not heard in many 
 years. She straightened herself, so, and her 
 eyes were wonder-wide, and she asked who 
 I was, and where I had learned that speech. 
 
 " I am Naass, I said. 
 
 " You? she said. You? And she 
 crept close that she might look upon me. 
 
 " Yes, I answered ; I am Naass, head 
 man of Akatan, the last of the blood, as you 
 are the last of the blood. 
 
 " And she laughed. By all the things I 
 have seen and the deeds I have done, may I 
 never hear such a laugh again. It put the 
 chill to my soul, sitting there in the White 
 Silence, alone with death and this woman who 
 laughed. 
 
AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH 247 
 
 " Come ! I said, for I thought she wan 
 dered. Eat of the food and let us be gone. 
 It is a far fetch from here to Akatan. 
 
 "But she shoved her face in his yellow 
 mane, and laughed till it seemed the heavens 
 must fall about our ears. I had thought she 
 would be overjoyed at the sight of me, and 
 eager to go back to the memory of old times ; 
 but this seemed a strange form to take. 
 
 " Come ! I cried, taking her strong by 
 the hand. ( The way is long and dark. Let 
 us hurry ! 
 
 " Where ? she asked, sitting up, and 
 ceasing from her strange mirth. 
 
 " ( To Akatan/ I answered, intent on the 
 light to grow on her face at the thought. 
 But it became like his, with a sneer to the 
 lips, and cold anger. 
 
 " Yes/ she said ; we will go, hand in 
 hand, to Akatan, you and I. And we will 
 live in the dirty huts, and eat of the fish and 
 oil, and bring forth a spawn, a spawn to 
 be proud of all the days of our life. We will 
 forget the world and be happy, very happy. 
 It is good, most good. Come ! Let us 
 hurry. Let us go back to Akatan. 
 
 " And she ran her hand through his yel- 
 
248 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 low hair, and smiled in a way which was not 
 good. And there was no promise in her eyes. 
 " I sat silent, and marveled at the strange 
 ness of woman. I went back to the night 
 when he dragged her from me, and she 
 screamed and tore at his hair, at his hair 
 which now she played with and would not 
 leave. Then I remembered the price and the 
 long years of waiting ; and I gripped her 
 close, and dragged her away as he had done. 
 And she held back, even as on that night, 
 and fought like a she-cat for its whelp. And 
 when the fire was between us and the man, I 
 loosed her, and she sat and listened. And I 
 told her of all that lay between, of all that 
 had happened me on strange seas, of all that 
 I had done in strange lands ; of my weary 
 quest, and the hungry years, and the promise 
 which had been mine from the first. Ay, I 
 told all, even to what had passed that day be 
 tween the man and me, and in the days yet 
 young. And as I spoke I saw the promise 
 grow in her eyes, full and large like the 
 break of dawn. And I read pity there, the 
 tenderness of woman, the love, the heart and 
 the soul of Unga. And I was a stripling 
 again, for the look was the look of Unga as 
 
AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH 249 
 
 she ran up the beach, laughing, to the home 
 of her mother. The stern unrest was gone, 
 and the hunger, and the weary waiting. The 
 time was met. I felt the call of her breast, 
 and it seemed there I must pillow my head 
 and forget. She opened her arms to me, and 
 I came against her. Then, sudden, the hate 
 flamed in her eye, her hand was at my hip. 
 And once, twice, she passed the knife. 
 
 " Dog ! she sneered, as she flung me into 
 the snow. Swine ! And then she laughed 
 till the silence cracked, and went back to her 
 dead. 
 
 " As I say, once she passed the knife, and 
 twice ; but she was weak with hunger, and it 
 was not meant that I should die. Yet was I 
 minded to stay in that place, and to close my 
 eyes in the last long sleep with those whose 
 lives had crossed with mine and led my feet 
 on unknown trails. But there lay a debt 
 upon me which would not let me rest. 
 
 "And the way was long, the cold bitter, and 
 there was little grub. The Pellys had found 
 no moose, and had robbed my cache. And 
 so had the three white men ; but they lay 
 thin and dead in their cabin as I passed. 
 After that I do not remember, till I came 
 
250 THE SON OF THE WOLF 
 
 here, and found food and fire, much 
 fire." 
 
 As he finished, he crouched closely, even 
 jealously, over the stove. For a long while 
 the slush-lamp shadows played tragedies upon 
 the wall. 
 
 " But Unga ! " cried Prince, the vision still 
 strong upon him. 
 
 " Unga ? She would not eat of the ptar 
 migan. She lay with her arms about his 
 neck, her face deep in his yellow hair. I 
 drew the fire close, that she might not feel 
 
 7 O 
 
 the frost ; but she crept to the other side. 
 And I built a fire there ; yet it was little good, 
 for she would not eat. And in this manner 
 they still lie up there in the snow." 
 
 " And you ? " asked Malemute Kid. 
 
 " I do not know ; but Akatan is small, 
 and I have little wish to go back and live on 
 the edge of the world. Yet is there small 
 use in life. I can go to Constantine, and he 
 will put irons upon me, and one day they 
 will tie a piece of rope, so, and I will sleep 
 good. Yet no ; I do not know." 
 
 "But, Kid," protested Prince, "this is 
 murder ! " 
 
 " Hush ! " commanded Malemute Kid. 
 
AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH 251 
 
 66 There be things greater than our wisdom, 
 beyond our justice. The right and the 
 wrong of this we cannot say, and it is not for 
 us to judge." 
 
 Naass drew yet closer to the fire. There 
 was a great silence, and in each man s eyes 
 many pictures came and went. 
 
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