George Charles Fraser Pringle

“ But there was no thought of sorrow that Christmas Day. Nowhere in the world was there a merrier party, and when it came time for me to go, (I had a wedding at Last Chance Roadhouse) , it was with a feeling that the cabin had been a sanctuary of friendship, happiness and hospitality. When I went out into the darkness and the bitter cold I was hardly conscious of it for my heart was aglow. All through these years filled with many vivid experiences that day has kept its brightness. Nor will it ever fade away but seems to shine more clearly in the Halls of Memory as the years go by. ”

“ In nearly eleven years of the Yukon trails, living on the creeks among the mountains in early Klondike days, I could not fail to have my share of memorable experiences, some of them with more than a spice of hazard. I lived just the regular life of a "musher"—a man on the trail—and while that mode of life assuredly held nothing of monotony, yet I grew so accustomed to it that it all seemed part of the usual, familiar course of things. ”

“ For six hours I travelled straight away like a hunted moose. I was young, lean and fit as a wolf. I was tired but not at all exhausted. In wind and limb I was good for miles yet. But I was becoming exceedingly hungry, and felt the clutching, icy fingers of the frost getting through my clothes, and I knew there was no time to waste. Hunger and ninety-five degrees of frost on the trail combining against you with darkness as their ally, will soon club you into unconsciousness. ”

“ Then we had to face the long darkness and the deadly cold; to travel vast, white valleys filled with an almost terrifying silence broken only by the ugly howling of the wolves; to battle through deep and drifting snow along miles of lonely summits, with blizzards blinding and bewildering. But against each problem or task that Nature set us we matched, with zest, our wits and skill. There was the joy of conflict in it. Experience made us self-reliant and we learned to love the life, so free and clean, so full of stirring incident and victorious combat with the elements. ”

“ One hard winter in the Yukon, when the snow was very deep on the hills, and there had been a prolonged spell of unusually extreme frost, the wolves commenced to come down at night into the valleys close to the cabins to hunt and devour stray dogs, or anything else they could get. One night I was roused from sleep by the very unpleasant noise of a howling, snarling, wolf-pack fighting over something not far from my cabin. ”

“ The savagery of war and our heavy losses in men we knew and loved has stirred deep thoughts in us, grave inner questionings why these things should be, perplexing difficulties about the meaning of life and the power of death, the reason of suffering and the goodness of a God who permits it, criticisms of a social order, nominally Christian, which produces the barbarities we have witnessed and taken part in. We are groping for light like the blind, and wishing we could find a sure guide in our thinking on these tangled problems, in whose solution we might find satisfaction and assurance. ”

“ It's a great thing to have a guide who knows the trail not only "on the map" but has been over every bit of it and knows it perfectly. He shows by His own life just what He means, the heart right as His was right, and a brotherly-kindness that gladly lays down its life to help others. Doesn't it seem to you to be the right direction, the right trail, the right guide? ”

“ But here's the real story.
"Old Yank" was the man who gave the creek its name. He was a gambler of that kind who go out into the wilds among giant mountain-peaks, and in far-off, unnamed valleys alone with their pick-axe, shovel, and gold-pan stake their lives on the chance that there is gold in rock or gravel. Who can quarrel with such gambling? There are no marked cards in that game. If they win they win clean, and if they lose, well they've lived a glorious, free life filled with health, hope, and work without a master, and the companionship of a few choice friends. ”

“ My guide must not only know the trail and be able to get me through safely but he must be one with whom I can talk. Men used to go crazy in the North through sheer loneliness. Days alone on the trail with your dogs amid the deep silences of the sub-arctics makes you hungry for conversation with some other human being. I have turned ten miles out of my way on a heavy trail simply to get to some trapper or prospector where I might hear "the sweet music of speech." I remember having as a guide on a three weeks trip to the Lightning Creek Camp an Indian who was of the conventional silent type. ”

“ One winter the brutal cold gripped her and in spite of all we could do it took her life away. It was a sad day when we placed her body in the grave on that hillside. All the creek assembled to show their affection, and in deep sorrow. It was her last request that she should be buried there. She didn't want to be far from the man she loved even though it meant a lonely grave in a lonely land. The Klondike is for McDougal his homeland now. Fifteen years have passed since then and he still lives in that cabin on the mountain slope where the woman he loves best lies buried. ”

“ They will go through a vast and lonely land travelling along the wide valleys of frozen rivers, up long narrow gulches filled with snow, over miles of wind-swept mesas, and across high, treeless, mountain ridges. "All goes well, if all goes well," is a proverb of the trail, for in winter-time there, death is always near. ”

“ The whole horrid brood whose mother is selfishness exists only in men's hearts. "Out of the heart" Christ said, evil comes. Cleanse the heart and you clean the world. But you can't have your heart right the way Christ teaches unless you have a place in it for your brother. A Christian must be and will be deeply interested in Social Reform. You can't follow Christ and forget your brother, for the trail of Christ is the trail of self-sacrifice for others. Christ then knows the right trail which would lead you and me and the whole world unto a happier, sweeter day. ”

“ A dog doesn't appreciate having its nose kissed by human lips, and it is gross unkindness to let unthinking impulse lead you to over-feed them, or give them wrong food and make them sick and weak. It is cruel to keep your dog chained up for days at a time alone in your back-yard, varied only by taking him out for a walk usually on a leash. Our trail-dogs are almost always healthy, hungry, and happy. Each day they have, what every dog really needs and loves above all else, a long run in the wilds with other dogs, satisfying the old, inborn, "pack" instinct. ”

“ In one of the tents, I found thirty or so crowded in to hear a story of the Yukon, and in the tents close around others were listening as I talked. We were all in a serious mood, and somehow the consciousness of this influenced me, that night, to weave my stories into a message in which there would be comfort and cheer for men who had been hard hit, and had faced in roughest form the stern realities of life, and death, and suffering. There was help in it, I know, because I spoke of Jesus of Nazareth. ”

“ I hesitated only long enough to picture the trail. There was only that one mile on which I used the shoes, and though the snow there was deep I could wade through without them. It would mean perhaps an hour longer, but it wasn't two o'clock yet and I had a full six hours to travel fifteen miles. I decided to go.
I set out and made fast time until I struck the drifts on the summit. The short spell of gloom we called day had ended, and it was rapidly growing dark. Before I got over that mile there would be no light, and this unpleasant white fog would be blindfolding my eyes as well. ”

“ Long before I knew what geography was I had a fairly intimate knowledge of Edinburgh. Calton Hill, Arthur's Seat, Samson's Ribs, Holyrood Palace, High Street and Princes Street, I had the right location and a true picture of them all. When boy-like I would be building forts with blocks or in the sand, they would always be called Edinburgh Castle.
I knew all his stories except one, and that one was his own life. I heard that too, at last, and it came about in this wise. An important registered letter used to come to father quarterly, containing his soldier's pension. ”

“ Also because in every man there is something that stirs responsive to tales of the mystic Northland, vast, white, and silent. Then besides, the mad years of the Great Stampede had their own appeal, when the golden treasures were found and adventurers from the Seven Seas rushed to the discovery. What days those were, filled with tragedy and comedy, shameful things we would fain forget but can't, incidents too of heroism and comradeship that will live in our memories forever, and through it all, bad and good, an intense, throbbing life that was irresistibly fascinating. ”

“ Whatever your explanation, Shep was the cause, and the effect was seen in a brisk and willing lot of dogs going strong at the close of the day. Always he pulled his best. Whenever it was heavy sledding he would get right down dog-fashion, with his belly close to the trail, tongue hanging out, and do all he knew to keep things moving; heart, lungs, muscles, toe-nails and teeth were all enlisted in his effort to serve the man he loved who was riding under the robe in the sleigh behind. ”

“ One winter, among my dogs I had a half-mastiff, half-wolf, that I had raised from a pup. He was my favorite, a big, awkward, good-natured fellow who wanted to follow me everywhere, and when I left him at home would cry, in his own way, with vexation. He would go wild with joy when I returned. He also seemed to take upon himself the guarding of the cabin. Strangers might come and go for all the others cared, but Ben would always stop every man he didn't know at the cabin door, not in an ugly or noisy way, but as a matter of duty, until I opened the door and welcomed the stranger in. ”

“ Betimes the hostess graciously appears and with formal greeting and conventional smile gives you a hand to shake that has on occasions as much welcome in it as the tail of a dead fish. But this welcome was real, immediate, and unmistakable. I was right at home as soon as I stepped into the cabin for in so doing I came into the parlour, dining room, bed-room, and kitchen. They hadn't even a "but and a ben." There was something special about their welcome too, even in the hospitable north. To the miners generally I was known as the "sky-pilot," or "parson," or by my first or last name. ”

“ I don't blink the difficulties in our thinking about the Bible. They exist. Most of them can be explained when we study the subject a bit, some few are still half-solved puzzles to me which I enjoy working at when I have leisure, and some I suppose I shall never quite see through; but just let us lay them all aside for the time being and go straight to bed-rock and see if there is gold in the claim of Christ himself. You know, by the way, it is strange how what at one time we thought useless material in the Bible finds its place as we gain more experience of life. ”

“ First I went across to Bill Lennox's cabin and asked him to feed my dogs at noon. Then I hit the trail for McDougal's. I followed it along the bottom of the narrow valley among miners' windlass-dumps and cabins. At most of them I stepped in for a few minutes to wish my friends a Merry Christmas and also to tell or hear the news. There was always something of living interest to gossip about in those glorious, exciting days. Men were finding fortunes ten or twenty feet below the surface of the ground or even in the grass roots. ”

“ The instrumental music alone was enough to thrill one's soul, but when those thousands joined, with heart and voice, in melodious thanksgiving to God for release from the abundant travail of the bitter years, filling the glorious old temple full with a glad tumultuous harmony, the effect was indescribable. Hundreds were so moved they could find no voice for song, and could only lift their faces to heaven with tears of joy running down their cheeks. ”