fear of I knew not what, but I said nothing till the dogs were fed
and I had eaten as a man with work before him should. Then I
spoke up, demanding the word, and they shrank from me, afraid of
my anger and what I should do; but the story came out, the pitiful
story, word for word and act for act, and they marvelled that I
should be so quiet.
“When they had done I went to the Factor’s house, calmer than now
in the telling of it. He had been afraid and called upon the
breeds to help him; but they were not pleased with the deed, and
had left him to lie on the bed he had made. So he had fled to the
house of the priest. Thither I followed. But when I was come to
that place, the priest stood in my way, and spoke soft words, and
said a man in anger should go neither to the right nor left, but
straight to God. I asked by the right of a father’s wrath that he
give me past, but he said only over his body, and besought with me
to pray. Look you, it was the church, always the church; for I
passed over his body and sent the Factor to meet my woman-child
before his god, which is a bad god, and the god of the white men.
Then was there hue and cry, for word was sent to the station
below, and I came away. Through the Land of the Great Slave, down
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6
the Valley of the Mackenzie to the never-opening ice, over the
White Rockies, past the Great Curve of the Yukon, even to this
place did I come. And from that day to this, yours is the first
face of my father’s people I have looked upon. May it be the
last! These people, which are my people, are a simple folk, and I
have been raised to honor among them. My word is their law, and
their priests but do my bidding, else would I not suffer them.
When I speak for them I speak for myself. We ask to be let alone.
We do not want your kind. If we permit you to sit by our fires,
after you will come your church, your priests, and your gods. And
know this, for each white man who comes to my village, him will I
make deny his god. You are the first, and I give you grace. So
it were well you go, and go quickly.”
“I am not responsible for my brothers,” the second man spoke up,
filling his pipe in a meditative manner. Hay Stockard was at
times as thoughtful of speech as he was wanton of action; but only
at times.
“But I know your breed,” responded the other. “Your brothers are
many, and it is you and yours who break the trail for them to
follow. In time they shall come to possess the land, but not in
my time. Already, have I heard, are they on the head-reaches of
the Great River, and far away below are the Russians.”
Hay Stockard lifted his head with a quick start. This was
startling geographical information. The Hudson Bay post at Fort
Yukon had other notions concerning the course of the river,
believing it to flow into the Arctic.
“Then the Yukon empties into Bering Sea?” he asked.
“I do not know, but below there are Russians, many Russians.
Which is neither here nor there. You may go on and see for
yourself; you may go back to your brothers; but up the Koyukuk you
shall not go while the priests and fighting men do my bidding.
Thus do I command, I, Baptiste the Red, whose word is law and who
am head man over this people.”
“And should I not go down to the Russians, or back to my
brothers?”
“Then shall you go swift-footed before your god, which is a bad
god, and the god of the white men.”
The red sun shot up above the northern skyline, dripping and
bloody. Baptiste the Red came to his feet, nodded curtly, and
went back to his camp amid the crimson shadows and the singing of
the robins.
Hay Stockard finished his pipe by the fire, picturing in smoke and
coal the unknown upper reaches of the Koyukuk, the strange stream
which ended here its arctic travels and merged its waters with the
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7
muddy Yukon flood. Somewhere up there, if the dying words of a
ship-wrecked sailorman who had made the fearful overland journey
were to be believed, and if the vial of golden grains in his pouch
attested anything,–somewhere up there, in that home of winter,
stood the Treasure House of the North. And as keeper of the gate,
Baptiste the Red, English half-breed and renegade, barred the way.
“Bah!” He kicked the embers apart and rose to his full height,
arms lazily outstretched, facing the flushing north with careless
soul.
II
Hay Stockard swore, harshly, in the rugged monosyllables of his
mother tongue. His wife lifted her gaze from the pots and pans,
and followed his in a keen scrutiny of the river. She was a woman
of the Teslin Country, wise in the ways of her husband’s
vernacular when it grew intensive. From the slipping of a snow-
shoe thong to the forefront of sudden death, she could gauge
occasion by the pitch and volume of his blasphemy. So she knew
the present occasion merited attention. A long canoe, with
paddles flashing back the rays of the westering sun, was crossing
the current from above and urging in for the eddy. Hay Stockard
watched it intently. Three men rose and dipped, rose and dipped,
in rhythmical precision; but a red bandanna, wrapped about the
head of one, caught and held his eye.
“Bill!” he called. “Oh, Bill!”
A shambling, loose-jointed giant rolled out of one of the tents,
yawning and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Then he sighted the
strange canoe and was wide awake on the instant.
“By the jumping Methuselah! That damned sky-pilot!”
Hay Stockard nodded his head bitterly, half-reached for his rifle,
then shrugged his shoulders.
“Pot-shot him,” Bill suggested, “and settle the thing out of hand.
He’ll spoil us sure if we don’t.” But the other declined this
drastic measure and turned away, at the same time bidding the
woman return to her work, and calling Bill back from the bank.
The two Indians in the canoe moored it on the edge of the eddy,
while its white occupant, conspicuous by his gorgeous head-gear,
came up the bank.
“Like Paul of Tarsus, I give you greeting. Peace be unto you and
grace before the Lord.”
His advances were met sullenly, and without speech.
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8
“To you, Hay Stockard, blasphemer and Philistine, greeting. In
your heart is the lust of Mammon, in your mind cunning devils, in
your tent this woman whom you live with in adultery; yet of these
divers sins, even here in the wilderness, I, Sturges Owen, apostle
to the Lord, bid you to repent and cast from you your iniquities.”
“Save your cant! Save your cant!” Hay Stockard broke in testily.
“You’ll need all you’ve got, and more, for Red Baptiste over
yonder.”
He waved his hand toward the Indian camp, where the half-breed was
looking steadily across, striving to make out the newcomers.
Sturges Owen, disseminator of light and apostle to the Lord,
stepped to the edge of the steep and commanded his men to bring up
the camp outfit. Stockard followed him.
“Look here,” he demanded, plucking the missionary by the shoulder
and twirling him about. “Do you value your hide?”
“My life is in the Lord’s keeping, and I do but work in His
vineyard,” he replied solemnly.
“Oh, stow that! Are you looking for a job of martyrship?”
“If He so wills.”
“Well, you’ll find it right here, but I’m going to give you some
advice first. Take it or leave it. If you stop here, you’ll be
cut off in the midst of your labors. And not you alone, but your
men, Bill, my wife–”
“Who is a daughter of Belial and hearkeneth not to the true
Gospel.”
“And myself. Not only do you bring trouble upon yourself, but
upon us. I was frozen in with you last winter, as you will well
recollect, and I know you for a good man and a fool. If you think
it your duty to strive with the heathen, well and good; but, do
exercise some wit in the way you go about it. This man, Red
Baptiste, is no Indian. He comes of our common stock, is as bull-
necked as I ever dared be, and as wild a fanatic the one way as
you are the other. When you two come together, hell’ll be to pay,
and I don’t care to be mixed up in it. Understand? So take my