“How?”
“I know not how, but I shall find out how. Now go, and bother me no
more. If you do” — she hesitated to find fitting penalty — “if you do, I shall
have you rolled in the snow again as soon as the first snow flies.”
This was still in the early spring, and a little later El-Soo surprised the
country. Word went up and down the Yukon from Chilcoot to the Delta,
and was carried from camp to camp to the farthermost camps, that in June,
when the first salmon ran, El-Soo, daughter of Klakee-Nah, would sell
herself at public auction to satisfy the claims of Porportuk. Vain were the
attempts to dissuade her. The missionary at St. George wrestled with her,
but she replied: —
“Only the debts to God are settled in the next world. The debts of men are
of this world, and in this world are they settled.”
Akoon wrestled with her, but she replied: “I do love thee, Akoon; but
honor is greater than love, and who am I that I should blacken my father?”
Sister Alberta journeyed all the way up from Holy Cross on the first
steamer, and to no better end.
“My father wanders in the thick and endless forests,” said El-Soo. “And
there will he wander, with the lost souls crying, till the debt be paid. Then,
and not until then, may he go on to the house of the Great Father.”
“And you believe this?” Sister Alberta asked.
“I do not know,” El-Soo made answer. “It was my father’s belief.”
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Sister Alberta shrugged her shoulders incredulously.
“Who knows but that the things we believe come true?” El-Soo went on.
“Why not? The next world to you may be heaven and harps . . . because
you have believed heaven and harps; to my father the next world may be a
large house where he will sit always at table feasting with God.”
“And you?” Sister Alberta asked. “What is your next world?”
El-Soo hesitated but for a moment. “I should like a little of both,” she said.
“I should like to see your face as well as the face of my father.”
The day of the auction came. Tana-naw Station was populous. As was
their custom, the tribes had gathered to await the salmon-run, and in the
meantime spent the time in dancing and frolicking, trading and gossiping.
Then there was the ordinary sprinkling of white adventurers, traders, and
prospectors, and, in addition, a large number of white men who had come
because of curiosity or interest in the affair.
It had been a backward spring, and the salmon were late in running. This
delay but keyed up the interest. Then, on the day of the auction, the
situation was made tense by Akoon. He arose and made public and solemn
announcement that whosoever bought El-Soo would forthwith and
immediately die. He flourished the Winchester in his hand to indicate the
manner of the taking-off. El-Soo was angered thereat; but he refused to
speak with her, and went to the trading post to lay in extra ammunition.
The first salmon was caught at ten o’clock in the evening, and at midnight
the auction began. It took place on top of the high bank alongside the
Yukon. The sun was due north just below the horizon, and the sky was
lurid red. A great crowd gathered about the table and the two chairs that
stood near the edge of the bank. To the fore were many white men and
several chiefs. And most prominently to the fore, rifle in hand, stood
Akoon. Tommy, at El-Soo’s request, served as auctioneer, but she made
the opening speech and described the goods about to be sold. She was in
native costume, in the dress of a chief’s daughter, splendid and barbaric,
and she stood on a chair, that she might be seen to advantage.
“Who will buy a wife?” she asked. “Look at me. I am twenty years old and
a maid. I will be a good wife to the man who buys me. If he is a white
man, I shall dress in the fashion of white women; if he is an Indian, I shall
dress as” — she hesitated a moment — “a squaw. I can make my own
clothes, and sew, and wash, and mend. I was taught for eight years to do
these things at Holy Cross Mission. I can read and write English, and I
know how to play the organ. Also I can do arithmetic and some algebra —
a little. I shall be sold to the highest bidder, and to him I will make out a
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78
bill of sale of myself. I forgot to say that I can sing very well, and that I
have never been sick in my life. I weigh one hundred and thirty-two
pounds; my father is dead and I have no relatives. Who wants me?”
She looked over the crowd with flaming audacity and stepped down. At
Tommy’s request she stood upon the chair again, while he mounted the
second chair and started the bidding.
Surrounding El-Soo stood the four old slaves of her father. They were agetwisted
and palsied, faithful to their meat, a generation out of the past that
watched unmoved the antics of younger life. In the front of the crowd
were several Eldorado and Bonanza kings from the Upper Yukon, and
beside them, on crutches, swollen with scurvy, were two broken
prospectors. From the midst of the crowd, thrust out by its own vividness,
appeared the face of a wild-eyed squaw from the remote regions of the
Upper Tana-naw; a strayed Sitkan from the coast stood side by side with a
Stick from Lake Le Barge, and, beyond, a half-dozen French-Canadian
voyageurs, grouped by themselves. From afar came the faint cries of
myriads of wild-fowl on the nesting-grounds. Swallows were skimming up
overhead from the placid surface of the Yukon, and robins were singing.
The oblique rays of the hidden sun shot through the smoke, highdissipated
from forest fires a thousand miles away, and turned the heavens
to sombre red, while the earth shone red in the reflected glow. This red
glow shone in the faces of all, and made everything seem unearthly and
unreal.
The bidding began slowly. The Sitkan, who was a stranger in the land and
who had arrived only half an hour before, offered one hundred dollars in a
confident voice, and was surprised when Akoon turned threateningly upon
him with the rifle. The bidding dragged. An Indian from the Tozikakat, a
pilot, bid one hundred and fifty, and after some time a gambler, who had
been ordered out of the Upper Country, raised the bid to two hundred. El-
Soo was saddened; her pride was hurt; but the only effect was that she
flamed more audaciously upon the crowd.
There was a disturbance among the onlookers as Porportuk forced his way
to the front. “Five hundred dollars!” he bid in a loud voice, then looked
about him proudly to note the effect.
He was minded to use his great wealth as a bludgeon with which to stun
all competition at the start. But one of the voyageurs, looking on El-Soo
with sparkling eyes, raised the bid a hundred.
“Seven hundred!” Porportuk returned promptly.
And with equal promptness came the “Eight hundred,” of the voyageur.
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Then Porportuk swung his club again. “Twelve hundred!” he shouted.
With a look of poignant disappointment, the voyageur succumbed. There
was no further bidding. Tommy worked hard, but could not elicit a bid.
El-Soo spoke to Porportuk. “It were good, Porportuk, for you to weigh
well your bid. Have you forgotten the thing I told you — that I would never
marry you!”
“It is a public auction,” he retorted. “I shall buy you with a bill of sale. I
have offered twelve hundred dollars. You come cheap.”
“Too damned cheap!” Tommy cried. “What if I am auctioneer? That does
not prevent me from bidding. I’ll make it thirteen hundred.”
“Fourteen hundred,” from Porportuk.
“I’ll buy you in to be my — my sister,” Tommy whispered to El-Soo, then
called aloud, “Fifteen hundred!”
At two thousand, one of the Eldorado kings took a hand, and Tommy
dropped out.
A third time Porportuk swung the club of his wealth, making a clean raise
of five hundred dollars. But the Eldorado king’s pride was touched. No
man could club him. And he swung back another five hundred.
El-Soo stood at three thousand. Porportuk made it thirty-five hundred, and
gasped when the Eldorado king raised it a thousand dollars. Porportuk
again raised it five hundred, and again gasped when the king raised a
thousand more.
Porportuk became angry. His pride was touched; his strength was
challenged, and with him strength took the form of wealth. He would not
be ashamed for weakness before the world. El-Soo became incidental. The
savings and scrimpings from the cold nights of all his years were ripe to be