Roy Norton

“ Then we went ahead and, being pretty well through the pass, didn't miss the guide much. I rather think Bill was glad he went overboard.
In the wild places where a man's free there are trips and trips, but this was a bad one, with villages far between—hundreds of miles—and many of them starving, the caribou having run north that winter. It was always on and on, the snow soft at times, till you wore your heart out tugging at your sled ropes and swore at the balls that clogged the web when your shoes settled deeply. ”

“ The dogs backed up, the sled lost way, and then commenced to sheer off to follow the guide. There wasn't anything for me to do but try to hold it with my body. I threw myself flat down on the crust. I stopped the sled all right, but it began to look as though I, too, would go over, when all of a sudden something grabbed me from the uphill side; there was a scratching of claws gripping into the ice, and Bill was dragging me back for all he was worth.
You know how just a little help sometimes makes things easy? Well, that's what Bill did for me. ”

“ Bill had been so hungry to associate with white men that he had dug a tunnel and eaten clean through a wood door to enjoy our society. But when the kasima grew quiet again, you may be sure Bill went to sleep between Tom's feet and mine. Neither Tom nor I wanted to take a chance, because Bill gave us to understand that the tyune would murder him if we didn't stand pat. ”

“ Bill said by way of conversation, "and am mighty glad you came along. I'm hungry to talk to, and be with, my own people again." It was there we named him Bill, first because that's a gentleman's name, and second because he looked like a partner we once had down Arizona way.
Then we drove hard toward the igloos, thinking that after all these months we were going to meet one human being that we could feel sure of; but it was a disappointment. There wasn't any white man there, and most of the Indians had never seen one. They crowded around us in sullen, suspicious curiosity. We weren't popular. ”

“ No more, though, because those slugs which the benevolent H. B. used to trade cost a nickel each, and that makes gunning expensive.
I forgot to say that Tom and me had the finest dog team that was ever brought together in the Arctic. Anyhow, I think so. Had them trained so that with a "Yip-yip" they would break into a dead run. When we saw that mob coming after Bill, we made a jump for the sled, did the tallest "yip-yipping" we had ever done, and were off in a cloud of snowdust. The guide had stopped, and when we caught up with him, didn't want to join the party. ”

“ There isn't much more to this story; all our lonesomeness in the separation, and the weariness and suffering of the trip which nearly ended our lives, doesn't count. We did well that early spring, and when the ice was gone, Tom worked the claim alone while I went back in a little coaster to bring Bill. ”