a great journey in mind, and stood in need of one to feed my dogs
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and to lift a paddle with me through the long river days. One
blanket would cover the twain; so I chose Passuk.
“Have I not said I was a servant to the Government? If not, it is
well that ye know. So I was taken on a warship, sleds and dogs
and evaporated foods, and with me came Passuk. And we went north,
to the winter ice-rim of Bering Sea, where we were landed,–
myself, and Passuk, and the dogs. I was also given moneys of the
Government, for I was its servant, and charts of lands which the
eyes of man had never dwelt upon, and messages. These messages
were sealed, and protected shrewdly from the weather, and I was to
deliver them to the whale-ships of the Arctic, ice-bound by the
great Mackenzie. Never was there so great a river, forgetting
only our own Yukon, the Mother of all Rivers.
“All of which is neither here nor there, for my story deals not
with the whale-ships, nor the berg-bound winter I spent by the
Mackenzie. Afterward, in the spring, when the days lengthened and
there was a crust to the snow, we came south, Passuk and I, to the
Country of the Yukon. A weary journey, but the sun pointed out
the way of our feet. It was a naked land then, as I have said,
and we worked up the current, with pole and paddle, till we came
to Forty Mile. Good it was to see white faces once again, so we
put into the bank. And that winter was a hard winter. The
darkness and the cold drew down upon us, and with them the famine.
To each man the agent of the Company gave forty pounds of flour
and twenty of bacon. There were no beans. And, the dogs howled
always, and there were flat bellies and deep-lined faces, and
strong men became weak, and weak men died. There was also much
scurvy.
“Then came we together in the store one night, and the empty
shelves made us feel our own emptiness the more. We talked low,
by the light of the fire, for the candles had been set aside for
those who might yet gasp in the spring. Discussion was held, and
it was said that a man must go forth to the Salt Water and tell to
the world our misery. At this all eyes turned to me, for it was
understood that I was a great traveler. ‘It is seven hundred
miles,’ said I, ‘to Haines Mission by the sea, and every inch of
it snowshoe work. Give me the pick of your dogs and the best of
your grub, and I will go. And with me shall go Passuk.’
“To this they were agreed. But there arose one, Long Jeff, a
Yankee-man, big-boned and big-muscled. Also his talk was big.
He, too, was a mighty traveler, he said, born to the snowshoe and
bred up on buffalo milk. He would go with me, in case I fell by
the trail, that he might carry the word on to the Mission. I was
young, and I knew not Yankee-men. How was I to know that big talk
betokened the streak of fat, or that Yankee-men who did great
things kept their teeth together? So we took the pick of the dogs
and the best of the grub, and struck the trail, we three,–Passuk,
Long Jeff, and I.
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“Well, ye have broken virgin snow, labored at the gee-pole, and
are not unused to the packed river-jams; so I will talk little of
the toil, save that on some days we made ten miles, and on others
thirty, but more often ten. And the best of the grub was not
good, while we went on stint from the start. Likewise the pick of
the dogs was poor, and we were hard put to keep them on their
legs. At the White River our three sleds became two sleds, and we
had only come two hundred miles. But we lost nothing; the dogs
that left the traces went into the bellies of those that remained.
“Not a greeting, not a curl of smoke, till we made Pelly. Here I
had counted on grub; and here I had counted on leaving Long Jeff,
who was whining and trail-sore. But the factor’s lungs were
wheezing, his eyes bright, his cache nigh empty; and he showed us
the empty cache of the missionary, also his grave with the rocks
piled high to keep off the dogs. There was a bunch of Indians
there, but babies and old men there were none, and it was clear
that few would see the spring.
“So we pulled on, light-stomached and heavy-hearted, with half a
thousand miles of snow and silence between us and Haines Mission
by the sea. The darkness was at its worst, and at midday the sun
could not clear the sky-line to the south. But the ice-jams were
smaller, the going better; so I pushed the dogs hard and traveled
late and early. As I said at Forty Mile, every inch of it was
snow-shoe work. And the shoes made great sores on our feet, which
cracked and scabbed but would not heal. And every day these sores
grew more grievous, till in the morning, when we girded on the
shoes, Long Jeff cried like a child. I put him at the fore of the
light sled to break trail, but he slipped off the shoes for
comfort. Because of this the trail was not packed, his moccasins
made great holes, and into these holes the dogs wallowed. The
bones of the dogs were ready to break through their hides, and
this was not good for them. So I spoke hard words to the man, and
he promised, and broke his word. Then I beat him with the dog-
whip, and after that the dogs wallowed no more. He was a child,
what of the pain and the streak of fat.
“But Passuk. While the man lay by the fire and wept, she cooked,
and in the morning helped lash the sleds, and in the evening to
unlash them. And she saved the dogs. Ever was she to the fore,
lifting the webbed shoes and making the way easy. Passuk–how
shall I say?–I took it for granted that she should do these
things, and thought no more about it. For my mind was busy with
other matters, and besides, I was young in years and knew little
of woman. It was only on looking back that I came to understand.
“And the man became worthless. The dogs had little strength in
them, but he stole rides on the sled when he lagged behind.
Passuk said she would take the one sled, so the man had nothing to
do. In the morning I gave him his fair share of grub and started
him on the trail alone. Then the woman and I broke camp, packed
the sleds, and harnessed the dogs. By midday, when the sun mocked
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us, we would overtake the man, with the tears frozen on his
cheeks, and pass him. In the night we made camp, set aside his
fair share of grub, and spread his furs. Also we made a big fire,
that he might see. And hours afterward he would come limping in,
and eat his grub with moans and groans, and sleep. He was not
sick, this man. He was only trail-sore and tired, and weak with
hunger. But Passuk and I were trail-sore and tired, and weak with
hunger; and we did all the work and he did none. But he had the
streak of fat of which our brother Bettles has spoken. Further,
we gave the man always his fair share of grub.
“Then one day we met two ghosts journeying through the Silence.
They were a man and a boy, and they were white. The ice had
opened on Lake Le Barge, and through it had gone their main
outfit. One blanket each carried about his shoulders. At night
they built a fire and crouched over it till morning. They had a
little flour. This they stirred in warm water and drank. The man
showed me eight cups of flour–all they had, and Pelly, stricken
with famine, two hundred miles away. They said, also, that there
was an Indian behind; that they had whacked fair, but that he
could not keep up. I did not believe they had whacked fair, else
would the Indian have kept up. But I could give them no grub.
They strove to steal a dog–the fattest, which was very thin–but
I shoved my pistol in their faces and told them begone. And they
went away, like drunken men, through the Silence toward Pelly.
“I had three dogs now, and one sled, and the dogs were only bones