Elizabeth Robins

“ He sat immovable in the round-shouldered attitude learned in pulling a hand-sled against a gale from the Pole. If you are moderately excited you may start, but there is an excitement that "nails you."
Nig shook his wolf's coat and sprayed the water far and wide, made little joyful noises, and licked the face that was so still. But his master, like a man of stone, stared at that long gray pennon in the sky. If it isn't a steamer, what is it? Like an echo out of some lesson he had learned and long forgot, "Up-bound boats don't run the channel: they have to hunt for easy water." ”

“ In the bed of the creek, up and down in every direction, squads of men sweating in the sun—here, where for untold centuries herds of leisurely and majestic moose had come to quench their thirst. In the older cabins their horns still lorded it. Their bones were bleaching in the fire-weed.
On from claim to claim the new-comers to these rich pastures went, till they came to the junction of the El Dorado, where huddles the haphazard settlement of the Grand Forks, only twelve miles from Dawson. And now they were at the heart of "the richest Placer Mining District the world has seen." ”

“ The half-shut eye of the camp fire gleamed cheerfully, as he ran back, and crouched down where poor little Muckluck had knelt, so sure of a welcome. Muckluck, cogitated the Boy, will believe more firmly than ever that, if a man doesn't beat a girl, he doesn't mean business. What was it he had wound round one hand? What was it dangling in the acrid smoke? That, then—her trinket, the crowning ornament of her Holy Cross holiday attire, that was what she was offering the old ogre of the Yukon—for his unworthy sake. He stirred up the dying fire to see it better. ”

“ Talk about a tide in the affairs of men! Why, a tide that washes up to a wayfarer's feet a pair o' chaparejos like that—well! legs so habited would simply have to carry a fella on to fortune. He lay back on the sleeping-bench with dancing eyes, while the raw whisky hummed in his head. In the dim light of seal-lamps vague visions visited him of stern and noble chiefs out of the Leather Stocking Stories of his childhood—men of daring, whose legs were invariably cased in buck-skin with dangling fringes. But the dashing race was not all Indian, nor all dead. ”

“ Those who, in spite of warning, ventured in hip-boots down on the Never-Know-What, found that, in places, the under side of the ice was worn nearly through. If you bent your head and listened, you could plainly hear that greater music of the river running underneath, low as yet, but deep, and strangely stirring—dominating in the hearer's ears all the clear, high clamour from gulch and hill.
In some men's hearts the ice "went out" at the sound, and the melting welled up in their eyes. Summer and liberty were very near.
"Oh, hurry, Yukon Inua; let the ice go out and let the boats come in." ”

“ Winter was down on the camp again. The whole world was hard as iron. The men kept close to the Big Chimney all day long, and sat there far into the small hours of the morning, saying little, heavy-eyed and sullen. The dreaded insomnia of the Arctic had laid hold on all but the Colonel. Even his usually unbroken repose was again disturbed one night about a week later. Some vague sort of sound or movement in the room—Kaviak on a raid?—or—wasn't that the closing of a door?
"Kaviak!" He put his hand down and felt the straight hair of the Esquimaux in the under bunk. "Potts! Who's there?" ”

“ Meanwhile, to poor Kaviak it was being plainly demonstrated what an awful fate descended on a person so unlucky as to part with his amulet. He stood straight up in the bucket like a champagne-bottle in a cooler, and he could not have resented his predicament more if he had been set in crushed ice instead of warm water. Under the remorseless hands of Nicholas he began to splutter and choke, to fizz, and finally explode with astonishment and wrath. It was quite clear Nicholas was trying to drown him. ”

“ The Colonel could more easily imagine Father Richmond walking the streets of Paris or of Rome, than "hitting the Yukon trail." He marvelled afresh at the devotion that brought such a man to wear out his fine attainments, his scholarship, his energy, his wide and Catholic knowledge, in travelling winter after winter, hundreds of miles over the ice from one Indian village to another. You could not divorce Father Richmond in your mind from the larger world outside ”

“ And they sat there thinking, watching the ice-blocks meet, crash, go down in foam, and come up again on the lower reaches, the Boy idly swinging the great Katharine's medal to and fro. In his buckskin pocket it has worn so bright it catches at the light like a coin fresh from the mint.
No doubt Muckluck is on the river-bank at Pymeut; the one-eyed Prince, the story-teller Yagorsha, even Ol' Chief—no one will be indoors to-day. ”

“ Kaviak, for ever following at Mac's heels "like a rale Irish tarrier," found his allegiance waver in these stirring, blissful days, if ever Farva so belied character and custom as to swing an axe for any length of time. Plainly out of patience, Kaviak would throw off the musk-rat coat, and run about in wet mucklucks and a single garment—uphill, downhill, on important errands which he confided to no man.
It is part of the sorcery of such days that men's thoughts, like birds', turn to other places, impatient of the haven that gave them shelter in rough weather overpast. ”

“ They did the impossible—they made room, and turned back the buffalo-skin. Only the big Colonel, who was most in the way of all, sat, not stirring, staring in the fire. Such a look on the absent, tender face as the great masters, the divinest poets cannot often summon, but which comes at the call of some foolish old nursery jingle, some fragment of half-forgotten folk-lore, heard when the world was young—when all hearing was music, when all sight was "pictures," when every sense brought marvels that seemed the everyday way of the wonderful, wonderful world. ”

“ Nicholas took up the tale afresh. "Shamán come. Father Wills heap mad. He no let Shamán stay."
"No; him say, 'Go! plenty quick, plenty far. Hey, you! Mush!'"
They smoked awhile in silence broken only by coughs.
"Shamán say, 'Yukon Inua plenty mad.'"
"Who is Yukon Inua? Where does he live?"
"Unner Yukon ice," whispered Nicholas. "Oh, the river spirit?... Of course."
"Him heap strong. Long time"—he motioned back into the ages with one slim brown hand—"fore Holy Cross here, Yukon Inua take good care Pymeuts." ”

“ Faint under the desolate sound another—sibilant, clearer, uncannily human. Nicholas had heard, too, for he threw down the tattered deerskin, and went to the other side of the fire. Voices in the tunnel. Nicholas held back the flap and gravely waited there, till one Pymeut after another crawled in. They were the men the Boy had seen at the Kachime, with one exception—a vicious-looking old fellow, thin, wiry, with a face like a smoked chimpanzee and eyes of unearthly brightness. ”

“ There were none of those signs in the animal world outside, of premature stir and cheerful awaking, that in other lands help the illusion that winter lies behind, but there was that even more stimulating sweet air abroad, that subtle mixture of sun and yielding frost, that softened wind that comes blowing across the snow, still keen to the cheek, but subtly reviving to the sensitive nostril, and caressing to the eyes. ”

“ When the business was ended, Minóok self-control gave way. The cheechalkos found themselves the laughing-stock of the town. The others, who had dared to build down on the bank, but who "hadn't scared worth a cent," sauntered up to the Gold Nugget to enjoy the increased esteem of the Sour-doughs, and the humiliation of the men who had thought "the Yukon was goin' over the Ramparts this year—haw, haw!"
It surprises the average mind to discover that one of civilization's most delicate weapons is in such use and is so potently dreaded among the roughest frontier spirits. ”

“ With the help of his stick the old Guide pulled his big body up on his one stout leg, hobbled nearer and gravely eyed Muckluck's offering as it swung to and fro on its walrus-string over the Leader's head. The Boy, quite conscious of some subtle change in the hitherto immobile face of the Indian, laid the token in his hand. Standing there in the centre of the semicircle between the assembly and the dog, Kurilla turned the Great Katharine's medal over, examining it closely, every eye in the room upon him. ”

“ The Boy was dressed for a journey. His Arctic cap was drawn down over his ears and neck. The wolf-skin fringe of his parki hood stood out fiercely round the defiant young face. Wound about one of his seal-skin mittens was the rope of the new hand-sled he'd been fashioning so busily of nights by the camp fire. His two blankets were strapped on the sled, Indian fashion, along with a gunny sack and his rifle.
The two men stood looking angrily at each other a moment, and then the Colonel politely inquired:
"What in hell are you doing?"
"Goin' to Minóok."
"The devil you are!" ”

“ They tugged and hauled, and only dragged the lashing loose, while the sled seemed soldered to the hard-packed middle of the drift. As they reloaded, the thermometer came to light. The Colonel threw it out, with never a word. They had no clothes now but what they stood in, and only one thing on the sled they could have lived without—their money, a packet of trading stores. But they had thrown away more than they knew. Day by day, not flannels and boots alone, not merely extra kettle, thermometer and gun went overboard, but some grace of courtesy, some decency of life had been left behind. ”

“ Glancing riverwards, he saw the dirty imp, who had been so wildly entertained by the encounter on the ice, still huddled on his drift-wood observatory, presenting as little surface to the cold as possible, but grinning still with rapture at the spirited last act of the winter-long drama. As the Boy, with an exclamation of "Well, I give it up," walked slowly across the slope after the Colonel and Yagorsha, Muckluck lingered at his side.
"In your country when girl marry—she no scream?" ”

“ With his back to Kaviak, the Boy, O'Flynn, and Potts crowding round him, Mac ripped open the little bird-skin pouch, and took out three objects—an ivory mannikin, a crow's feather, and a thing that Father Wills said was a seal-blood plug.
"What's it for?" "Same as the rest. It's an amulet; only as it's used to stop the flow of blood from the wound of a captive seal, it is supposed to be the best of all charms for anyone who spits blood."
"I'll clean 'em all after the Blow-Out," said Mac, and he went out, buried the charms in the snow, and stuck up a spruce twig to mark the spot. ”

“ Just a sled lying in the moonlight. But the change that can be wrought in a man's heart upon sight of a human sign! it may be idle to speak of that to any but those who have travelled the desolate ways of the North.
Side by side the two went down the slope, slid and slipped and couldn't stop themselves, till they were below the landmark. Looking up, they saw that a piece of soiled canvas or a skin, held down with a drift-log, fell from under the sled, portière-wise from the top of the terrace, straight down to the sheltered level, where the camp fire had been. ”

“ Mac cut down a gingerbread man and gave it into the tiny hands.
"What wind blew that thing into your cabin?" asked the General, squinting up his snow-blinded eyes at the dim corner where Kaviak sat.
There wasn't a man in the camp who didn't resent the millionaire's tone.
"This is a great friend of ours—ain't you, Kaviak?" said the Boy. "He's got a soul above gold-mines, haven't you? He sees other fellas helping themselves to his cricket and his high chair—too polite to object—just goes and sits like a philosopher on the bones of dead devils and looks on. ”

“ They had meant to hug the right bank, but snow and ice refashion the world and laugh at the trustful geography of men. A traveller on this trail is not always sure whether he is following the mighty Yukon or some slough equally mighty for a few miles, or whether, in the protracted twilight, he has not wandered off upon some frozen swamp. ”

“ As the white men waited for boats to-day, the men of the older time had waited for the salmon—for those first impatient adventurers that would force their way under the very ice-jam, tenderest and best of the season's catch, as eager to prosecute that journey from the ocean to the Klondyke as if they had been men marching after the gold boom. ”