CHAPTER IV THE BLOW-OUT

CHAPTER IV

THE BLOW-OUT

"How good it is to invite men to the pleasant feast."

Comfortable as rock fireplace and stockade made the cabin now, the Colonel had been feeling all that morning that the official House-Warming was fore-doomed to failure. Nevertheless, as he was cook that week, he could not bring himself to treat altogether lightly his office of Master of the Feast. There would probably be no guests. Even their own little company would likely be incomplete, but t here was to be a spread that afternoon, "anyways."

Even had the Colonel needed any keeping up to the mark, the office would have been cheerfully undertaken by O'Flynn or by Potts, for whom interest in the gustatory aspect of the occasion was wholly undimmed by the threatened absence of Mac and the "little divvle."

"There'll be the more for us," said Potts enthusiastically.

O'Flynn's argument seemed to halt upon a reservation. He looked over the various contributions to the feast, set out on a board in front of the water-bucket, and, "It's mate I'm wishin' fur," says he.

"We've got fish."

"That's only mate on Fridays. We've had fish fur five days stiddy, an' befure that, bacon three times a day wid sivin days to the week, an' not enough bacon ayther, begob, whin all's said and done! Not enough to be fillin', and plenty to give us the scurrvy. May the divil dance on shorrt rations!"

"No scurvy in this camp for a while yet," said the Colonel, throwing some heavy objects into a pan and washing them vigorously round and round.

"Pitaties!" O'Flynn's eyes dwelt lovingly on the rare food. "Ye've hoarded 'em too long, man, they've sprouted."

"That won't prevent you hoggin' more'n your share, I'll bet," said Potts pleasantly.

"I don't somehow like wasting the sprouts," observed the Colonel anxiously. "It's such a wonderful sight--something growing." He had cut one pallid slip, and held it tenderly between knife and thumb.

"Waste 'em with scurvy staring us in the face? Should think not. Mix 'em with cold potaters in a salad."

"No. Make slumgullion," commanded O'Flynn.

"What's that?" quoth the Colonel.

"Be the Siven! I only wonder I didn't think of it befure. Arre ye listening, Kentucky? Ye take lots o' wathur, an' if ye want it rich, ye take the wathur ye've boiled pitaties or cabbage in--a vegetable stock, ye mind--and ye add a little flour, salt, and pepper, an' a tomater if ye're in New York or 'Frisco, and ye boil all that together with a few fish-bones or bacon-rin's to make it rale tasty."

"Yes--well?"

"Well, an' that's slumgullion."

"Don't sound heady enough for a 'Blow-Out,'" said the Colonel. "We'll sober up on slumgullion to-morrow."

"Anyhow, it's mate I'm wishin' fur," sighed O'Flynn, subsiding among the tin-ware. "What's the good o' the little divvle and his thramps, if he can't bring home a burrud, or so much as the scut iv a rabbit furr the soup?"

"Well, he's contributed a bottle of California apricots, and we'll have boiled rice."

"An' punch, glory be!"

"Y-yes," answered the Colonel. "I've been thinkin' a good deal about the punch."

"So's myself," said O'Flynn frankly; but Potts looked at the Colonel suspiciously through narrowed eyes.

"There's very little whiskey left, and I propose to brew a mild bowl--"

"To hell with your mild bowls!"

"A good enough punch, sah, but one that--that--a--well, that the whole kit and boodle of us can drink. Indians and everybody, you know ... Nicholas and Andrew may turn up. I want you two fellas to suppoht me about this. There are reasons foh it, sah"--he had laid a hand on Potts' shoulder and fixed O'Flynn with his eye--"and"--speaking very solemnly--"yoh neither o' yoh gentlemen that need mo' said on the subject."

Whereupon, having cut the ground from under their feet, he turned decisively, and stirred the mush-pot with a magnificent air and a newly-whittled birch stick.

To give the Big Cabin an aspect of solid luxury, they had spread the Boy's old buffalo "robe" on the floor, and as the morning wore on Potts and O'Flynn made one or two expeditions to the Little Cabin, bringing back selections out of Mac's hoard "to decorate the banquet-hall," as they said. On the last trip Potts refused to accompany his pardner--no, it was no good. Mac evidently wouldn't be back to see, and the laugh would be on them "takin' so much trouble for nothin'." And O'Flynn wasn't to be long either, for dinner had been absurdly postponed already.

When the door opened the next time, it was to admit Mac, Nicholas with Kaviak in his arms, O'Flynn gesticulating like a windmill, and, last of all, the Boy.

Kaviak was formally introduced, but instead of responding to his hosts' attentions, the only thing he seemed to care about, or even see, was something that in the hurly-burly everybody else overlooked--the decorations. Mac's stuffed birds and things made a remarkably good show, but the colossal success was reserved for the minute shrunken skin of the baby white hare set down in front of the great fire for a hearthrug. If the others failed to appreciate that joke, not so Kaviak. He gave a gurgling cry, struggled down out of Nicholas's arms, and folded the white hare to his breast.

"Where are the other Indians?" said Mac.

"Looking after the dogs," said Father Wills; and as the door opened, "Oh yes, give us that," he said to Andrew. "I thought"--he turned to the Colonel--"maybe you'd like to try some Yukon reindeer."

"Hooray!"

"Mate? Arre ye sayin' mate, or is an angel singin'?"

"Now I _know_ that man's a Christian," soliloquised Potts.

"Look here: it'll take a little time to cook," said Mac, "and it's worth waitin' for. Can you let us have a pail o' hot water in the meantime?"

"Y-yes," said the Colonel, looking as if he had enough to think about already.

"Yes, we always wash them first of all," said Father Wills, noticing how Mac held the little heathen off at arm's length. "Nicholas used to help with that at Holy Cross." He gave the new order with the old authoritative gesture.

"And where's the liniment I lent you that you're so generous with?" Mac arraigned O'Flynn. "Go and get it."

Under Nicholas's hands Kaviak was forced to relinquish not only the baby hare, but his own elf locks. He was closely sheared, his moccasins put off, and his single garment dragged unceremoniously wrong side out over his head and bundled out of doors.

"Be the Siven! he's got as manny bones as a skeleton!"

"Poor little codger!" The Colonel stood an instant, skillet in hand staring.

"What's that he's got round his neck?" said the Boy, moving nearer.

Kaviak, seeing the keen look menacing his treasure, lifted a shrunken yellow hand and clasped tight the dirty shapeless object suspended from a raw-hide necklace.

Nicholas seemed to hesitate to divest him of this sole remaining possession.

"You must get him to give it up," said Father Wills, "and burn it."

Kaviak flatly declined to fall in with as much as he understood of this arrangement.

"What is it, anyway?" the Boy pursued.

"His amulet, I suppose." As Father Wills proceeded to enforce his order, and pulled the leather string over the child's head, Kaviak rent the air with shrieks and coughs. He seemed to say as well as he could, "I can do without my parki and my mucklucks, but I'll take my death without my amulet."

Mac insinuated himself brusquely between the victim and his persecutors. He took the dirty object away from the priest with scant ceremony, in spite of the whisper, "Infection!" and gave it back to the wrathful owner.

"You talk his language, don't you?" Mac demanded of Nicholas.

The Pymeut pilot nodded.

"Tell him, if he'll lend the thing to me to wash, he shall have it back."

Nicholas explained.

Kaviak, with streaming eyes and quivering lips, reluctantly handed it over, and watched Mac anxiously till overwhelmed by a yet greater misfortune in the shape of a bath for himself.

"How shall I clean this thing thoroughly?" Mac condescended to ask Father Wills. The priest shrugged.

"He'll have forgotten it to-morrow."

"He shall have it to-morrow," said Mac.

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.

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. He took the treatment so to heart, that he kept on howling dismally for some time after he was taken out, and dried, and linimented and dosed by Mac, whose treachery about the amulet he seemed to forgive, since "Farva" had had the air of rescuing him from the horrors he had endured in that water-bucket, where, for all Kaviak knew, he might have stayed till he succumbed to death. The Boy contributed a shirt of his own, and helped Mac to put it on the incredibly thin little figure. The shirt came down to Kaviak's heels, and had to have the sleeves rolled up every two minutes. But by the time the reindeer-steak was nearly done Kaviak was done, too, and O'Flynn had said, "That Spissimen does ye credit, Mac."

Said Spissimen was now staring hungrily out of the Colonel's bunk, holding towards Mac an appealing hand, with half a yard of shirt-sleeve falling over it.

Mac pretended not to see, and drew up to the table the one remaining available thing to sit on, his back to his patient.

When the dogs had been fed, and the other Indians had come in, and squatted on the buffalo-skin with Nicholas, the first course was sent round in tin cups, a nondescript, but warming, "camp soup."

"Sorry we've got so few dishes, gentlemen," the Colonel had said. "We'll have to ask some of you to wait till others have finished."

"Farva," remarked Kaviak, leaning out of the bunk and sniffing the savoury steam.

"He takes you for a priest," said Potts, with the cheerful intention of stirring Mac's bile. But not even so damning a suspicion as that could cool the collector's kindness for his new Spissimen.

"You come here," he said. Kaviak didn't understand. The Boy got up, limped over to the bunk, lifted the child out, and brought him to Mac's side.

"Since there ain't enough cups," said Mac, in self-justification, and he put his own, half empty, to Kaviak's lips. The Spissimen imbibed greedily, audibly, and beamed. Mac, with unimpaired gravity, took no notice of the huge satisfaction this particular remedy was giving his patient, except to say solemnly, "Don't bubble in it."

The next course was fish a la Pymeut.

"You're lucky to be able to get it," said the Father, whether with suspicion or not no man could tell. "I had to send back for some by a trader and couldn't get enough."

"We didn't see any trader," said the Boy to divert the current.

"He may have gone by in the dusk; he was travelling hotfoot."

"Thought that steamship was chockful o' grub. What did you want o' fish?"

"Yes; they've got plenty of food, but--"

"They don't relish parting with it," suggested Potts.

"They haven't much to think about except what they eat; they wanted to try our fish, and were ready to exchange. I promised I would send a load back from Ikogimeut if they'd--" He seemed not to care to finish the sentence.

"So you didn't do much for the Pymeuts after all?"

"I did something," he said almost shortly. Then, with recovered serenity, he turned to the Boy: "I promised I'd bring back any news." "Yes."

"Well?"

Everybody stopped eating and hung on the priest's words.

"Captain Rainey's heard there's a big new strike--"

"In the Klondyke?"

"On the American side this time."

"Hail Columbia!"

"Whereabouts?"

"At a place called Minook."

"Where's that?"

"Up the river by the Ramparts."

"How far?"

"Oh, a little matter of six or seven hundred miles from here."

"Glory to God!"

"Might as well be six or seven thousand."

"And very probably isn't a bona-fide strike at all," said the priest, "but just a stampede--a very different matter."

"Well, I tell you straight: I got no use for a gold-mine in Minook at this time o' year."

"Nop! Venison steak's more in my line than grub-stake just about now."

Potts had to bestir himself and wash dishes before he could indulge in his "line." When the grilled reindeer did appear, flanked by really-truly potatoes and the Colonel's hot Kentucky biscuit, there was no longer doubt in any man's mind but what this Blow-Out was being a success.

"Colonel's a daisy cook, ain't he?" the Boy appealed to Father Wills.

The Jesuit assented cordially.

"My family meant _me_ for the army," he said. "Seen much service, Colonel?"

The Kentuckian laughed.

"Never wasted a day soldiering in my life."

"Oh!"

"Maybe you're wonderin'," said Potts, "why he's a Colonel!"

The Jesuit made a deprecatory gesture, politely disclaiming any such rude curiosity.

"He's from Kentucky, you see;" and the smile went round. "Beyond that, we can't tell you why he's a Colonel unless it's because he ain't a Judge;" and the boss of the camp laughed with the rest, for the Denver man had scored.

By the time they got to the California apricots and boiled rice everybody was feeling pretty comfortable. When, at last, the table was cleared, except for the granite-ware basin full of punch, and when all available cups were mustered and tobacco-pouches came out, a remarkably genial spirit pervaded the company--with three exceptions.

Potts and O'Flynn waited anxiously to sample the punch before giving way to complete satisfaction, and Kaviak was impervious to considerations either of punch or conviviality, being wrapped in slumber on a corner of the buffalo-skin, between Mac's stool and the natives, who also occupied places on the floor.

Upon O'Flynn's first draught he turned to his next neighbour:

"Potts, me bhoy, 'tain't s' bad."

"I'll bet five dollars it won't make yer any happier."

"Begob, I'm happy enough! Gentlemen, wud ye like I should sing ye a song?"

"Yes."

"Yes," and the Colonel thumped the table for order, infinitely relieved that the dinner was done, and the punch not likely to turn into a _casus belli_. O'Flynn began a ditty about the Widdy Malone that woke up Kaviak and made him rub his round eyes with astonishment. He sat up, and hung on to the back of Mac's coat to make sure he had some anchorage in the strange new waters he had so suddenly been called on to navigate.

The song ended, the Colonel, as toast-master, proposed the health of--he was going to say Father Wills, but felt it discreeter to name no names. Standing up in the middle of the cabin, where he didn't have to stoop, he lifted his cup till it knocked against the swing-shelf, and called out, "Here's to Our Visitors, Neighbours, and Friends!" Whereupon he made a stately circular bow, which ended by his offering Kaviak his hand, in the manner of one who executes a figure in an old-fashioned dance. The smallest of "Our Visitors," still keeping hold of Mac, presented the Colonel with the disengaged half-yard of flannel undershirt on the other side, and the speech went on, very flowery, very hospitable, very Kentuckian.

When the Colonel sat down there was much applause, and O'Flynn, who had lent his cup to Nicholas, and didn't feel he could wait till it came back, began to drink punch out of the dipper between shouts of:

"Hooray! Brayvo! Here's to the Kurrnul! God bless him! That's rale oratry, Kurrnul! Here's to Kentucky--and ould Ireland."

Father Wills stood up, smiling, to reply.

_"Friends"_ (the Boy thought the keen eyes rested a fraction of a moment longer on Mac than on the rest),--_"I think in some ways this is the pleasantest House-Warming I ever went to. I won't take up time thanking the Colonel for the friendly sentiments he's expressed, though I return them heartily. I must use these moments you are good enough to give me in telling you something of what I feel is implied in the founding of this camp of yours.

"Gentlemen, the few white dwellers in the Yukon country have not looked forward"_ (his eyes twinkled almost wickedly) _"with that pleasure you might expect in exiles, to the influx of people brought up here by the great Gold Discovery. We knew what that sort of craze leads to. We knew that in a barren land like this, more and more denuded of wild game every year, more and more the prey of epidemic disease--we knew that into this sorely tried and hungry world would come a horde of men, all of them ignorant of the conditions up here, most of them ill-provided with proper food and clothing, many of them (I can say it without offence in this company)--many of them men whom the older, richer communities were glad to get rid of. Gentlemen, I have ventured to take you into our confidence so far, because I want to take you still farther--to tell you a little of the intense satisfaction with which we recognise that good fortune has sent us in you just the sort of neighbours we had not dared to hope for. It means more to us than you realise. When I heard a few weeks ago that, in addition to the boat-loads that had already got some distance up the river beyond Holy Cross--"_

"Going to Dawson?"

"Oh, yes, Klondyke mad--"

"They'll be there before us, boys!"

"Anyways, they'll get to Minook."

The Jesuit shook his head. "It isn't so certain. They probably made only a couple of hundred miles or so before the Yukon went to sleep."

"Then if grub gives out they'll be comin' back here?" suggested Potts.

_"Small doubt of it,"_ agreed the priest. _"And when I heard there were parties of the same sort stranded at intervals all along the Lower River--"_

"You sure?"

He nodded.

_"And when Father Orloff of the Russian mission told us that he was already having trouble with the two big rival parties frozen in the ice below Ikogimeut--"_

"Gosh! Wonder if any of 'em were on our ship?"

_"Well, gentlemen, I do not disguise from you that, when I heard of the large amount of whiskey, the small amount of food, and the low type of manners brought in by these gold-seekers, I felt my fears justified. Such men don't work, don't contribute anything to the decent social life of the community, don't build cabins like this. When I came down on the ice the first time after you'd camped, and I looked up and saw your solid stone chimney"_ (he glanced at Mac), _"I didn't know what a House-Warming it would make; but already, from far off across the ice and snow, that chimney warmed my heart. Gentlemen, the fame of it has gone up the river and down the river. Father Orloff is coming to see it next week, and so are the white traders from Anvik and Andreiefsky, for they've heard there's nothing like it in the Yukon. Of course, I know that you gentlemen have not come to settle permanently. I know that when the Great White Silence, as they call the long winter up here, is broken by the thunder of the ice rushing down to the sea, you, like the rest, will exchange the snow-fields for the gold-fields, and pass out of our ken. Now, I'm not usually prone to try my hand at prophecy; but I am tempted to say, even on our short acquaintance, that I am tolerably sure that, while we shall be willing enough to spare most of the new-comers to the Klondyke, we shall grudge to the gold-fields the men who built this camp and warmed this cabin."_ (His eye rested reflectively on Mac.) _"I don't wish to sit down leaving an impression of speaking with entire lack of sympathy of the impulse that brings men up here for gold. I believe that, even with the sort in the two camps below Ikogimeut--drinking, quarrelling, and making trouble with the natives at the Russian mission--I believe that even with them, the gold they came up here for is a symbol--a fetich, some of us may think. When such men have it in their hands, they feel dimly that they are laying tangible hold at last on some elusive vision of happiness that has hitherto escaped them. Behind each man braving the Arctic winter up here, is some hope, not all ignoble; some devotion, not all unsanctified. Behind most of these men I seem to see a wife or child, a parent, or some dear dream that gives that man his share in the Eternal Hope. Friends, we call that thing we look for by different names; but we are all seekers after treasure, all here have turned our backs on home and comfort, hunting for the Great Reward--each man a new Columbus looking for the New World. Some of us looking north, some south, some"_--he hesitated the briefest moment, and then with a faint smile, half sad, half triumphant, made a little motion of his head--_"some of us ... looking upwards."_

But quickly, as though conscious that, if he had raised the moral tone of the company, he had not raised its spirits, he hurried on:

_"Before I sit down, gentlemen, just one word more. I must congratulate you on having found out so soon, not only the wisdom, but the pleasure of looking at this Arctic world with intelligent eyes, and learning some of her wonderful lessons. It is so that, now the hardest work is finished, you will keep up your spirits and avoid the disease that attacks all new-comers who simply eat, sleep, and wait for the ice to go out. When I hear cheechalkos complaining of boredom up here in this world of daily miracles, I think of the native boy in the history-class, who, called on to describe the progress of civilisation, said: 'In those days men had as many wives as they liked, and that was called polygamy. Now they have only one wife, and that's called monotony.'"_

While O'Flynn howled with delight, the priest wound up:

_"Gentlemen, if we find monotony up here, it's not the country's fault, but a defect in our own civilisation."_ Wherewith he sat down amid cheers.

"Now, Colonel, is Mac goin' to recite some Border ballads?" inquired the Boy, "or will he make a speech, or do a Highland fling?"

The Colonel called formally upon Mr. MacCann.

Mac was no sooner on his legs than Kaviak, determined not to lose his grasp of the situation, climbed upon the three-legged stool just vacated, and resumed his former relations with the friendly coat-tail.

Everybody laughed but Mac, who pretended not to know what was going on behind his back.

"Gentlemen," he began harshly, with the air of one about to launch a heavy indictment, "there's one element largely represented here by numbers and by interests"--he turned round suddenly toward the natives, and almost swung Kaviak off into space--"one element not explicitly referred to in the speeches, either of welcome or of thanks. But, gentlemen, I submit that these hitherto unrecognised Natives are our real hosts, and a word about them won't be out of place. I've been told to-day that, whether in Alaska, Greenland, or British America, they call themselves _Innuits,_ which means human beings. They believed, no doubt, that they were the only ones in the world. I've been thinking a great deal about these Esquimaux of late--"

"Hear, hear!"

"About their origin and their destiny." (Mac was beginning to enjoy himself. The Boy was beginning to be bored and to drum softly with his fingers.) "Now, gentlemen, Buffon says that the poles were the first portions of the earth's crust to cool. While the equator, and even the tropics of Cancer and of Capricorn, were still too boiling hot to support life, up here in the Arctic regions there was a carboniferous era goin' on--"

"Where's the coal, then?" sneered Potts.

"It's bein' discovered ... all over ... ask him" (indicating Father Wills, who smiled assent). "Tropical forests grew where there are glayshers now, and elephants and mastodons began life here."

"Jimminy Christmas!" interrupted the Boy, sitting up very straight. "Is that Buffer you quoted a good authority?"

"First-rate," Mac snapped out defiantly.

"Good Lord! then the Garden o' Eden was up here."

"Hey?"

"Course! _This_ was the cradle o' the human race. Blow the Ganges! Blow the Nile! It was our Yukon that saw the first people, 'cause of course the first people lived in the first place got ready for 'em."

"That don't follow. Read your Bible."

"If I'm not right, how did it happen there were men here when the North was first discovered?"

"Sh!"

"Mac's got the floor."

"Shut up!"

But the Boy thumped the table with one hand and arraigned the schoolmaster with the other.

"Now, Mac, I put it to you as a man o' science: if the race had got a foothold in any other part o' the world, what in Sam Hill could make 'em come up here?"

"_We're_ here."

"Yes, tomfools after gold. They never dreamed there was gold. No, Sir_ee!_ the only thing on earth that could make men stay here, would be that they were born here, and didn't know any better. Don't the primitive man cling to his home, no matter what kind o' hole it is? He's _afraid_ to leave it. And these first men up here, why, it's plain as day--they just hung on, things gettin' worse and worse, and colder and colder, and some said, as the old men we laugh at say at home, 'The climate ain't what it was when I was a boy,' and nobody believed 'em, but everybody began to dress warmer and eat fat, and--"

"All that Buffon says is--"

"Yes--and they invented one thing after another to meet the new conditions--kaiaks and bidarras and ivory-tipped harpoons"--he was pouring out his new notions at the fastest express rate--"and the animals that couldn't stand it emigrated, and those that stayed behind got changed--"

"Dry up."

"One at a time."

"Buffon--"

"Yes, yes, Mac, and the hares got white, and the men, playin' a losin' game for centuries, got dull in their heads and stunted in their legs--always cramped up in a kaiak like those fellas at St. Michael's. And, why, it's clear as crystal--they're survivals! The Esquimaux are the oldest race in the world."

"Who's makin' this speech?"

"Order!"

"Order!"

"Well, see here: _do_ you admit it, Mac? Don't you see there were just a few enterprisin' ones who cleared out, or, maybe, got carried away in a current, and found better countries and got rich and civilised, and became our forefathers? Hey, boys, ain't I right?"

"You sit down."

"You'll get chucked out."

"Buffon--"

Everybody was talking at once.

"Why, it goes on still," the Boy roared above the din. "People who stick at home, and are patient, and put up with things, they're doomed. But look at the fellas that come out o' starvin' attics and stinkin' pigsties to America. They live like lords, and they look at life like men."

Mac was saying a great deal about the Ice Age and the first and second periods of glaciation, but nobody could hear what.

_"Prince_ Nicholas? Well, I should smile. He belongs to the oldest family in the world. Hoop-la!" The Boy jumped up on his stool and cracked his head against the roof; but he only ducked, rubbed his wild, long hair till it stood out wilder than ever, and went on: "Nicholas's forefathers were kings before Caesar; they were here before the Pyramids--"

The Colonel came round and hauled the Boy down. Potts was egging the miscreant on. O'Flynn, poorly disguising his delight in a scrimmage, had been shouting: "Ye'll spoil the Blow-Out, ye meddlin' jackass! Can't ye let Mac make his spache? No; ye must ahlways be huntin' round fur harrum to be doin' or throuble to make."

In the turmoil and the contending of many voices Nicholas began to explain to his friends that it wasn't a real fight, as it had every appearance of being, and the visitors were in no immediate danger of their lives. But Kaviak feared the worst, and began to weep forlornly.

"The world is dyin' at top and bottom!" screamed the Boy, writhing under the Colonel's clutch. "The ice will spread, the beasts will turn white, and we'll turn yella, and we'll all dress in skins and eat fat and be exactly like Kaviak, and the last man'll be found tryin' to warm his hands at the Equator, his feet on an iceberg and his nose in a snowstorm. Your old Buffer's got a long head, Mac. Here's to Buffer!" Whereupon he subsided and drank freely of punch.

"Well," said the Colonel, severely, "you've had a Blow-Out if nobody else has!"

"Feel better?" inquired Potts, tenderly.

"Now, Mac, you shall have a fair field," said the Colonel, "and if the Boy opens his trap again--"

"I'll punch 'im," promised O'Flynn, replenishing the disturber's cup.

But Mac wouldn't be drawn. Besides, he was feeding Kaviak. So the Colonel filled in the breach with "My old Kentucky Home," which he sang with much feeling, if not great art.

This performance restored harmony and a gentle reflectiveness.

Father Wills told about his journey up here ten years before and of a further expedition he'd once made far north to the Koyukuk.

"But Nicholas knows more about the native life and legends than anyone I ever met, except, of course, Yagorsha."

"Who's Yag----?" began the Boy.

"Oh, that's the Village Story-teller." He was about to speak of something else, but, lifting his eyes, he caught Mac's sudden glance of grudging attention. The priest looked away, and went on: "There's a story-teller in every settlement. He has always been a great figure in the native life, I believe, but now more than ever."

"Why's that?"

"Oh, battles are over and blood-feuds are done, but the need for a story-teller abides. In most villages he is a bigger man than the chief--they're all 'ol' chiefs,' the few that are left--and when they die there will be no more. So the tribal story-teller comes to be the most important character"--the Jesuit smiled in that shrewd and gentle way of his--"that is, of course, after the Shamán, as the Russians call him, the medicine-man, who is a teller of stories, too, in his more circumscribed fashion. But it's the Story-teller who helps his people through the long winter--helps them to face the terrible new enemies, epidemic disease and famine. He has always been their best defence against that age-old dread they all have of the dark. Yes, no one better able to send such foes flying than Yagorsha of Pymeut. Still, Nicholas is a good second." The Prince of Pymeut shook his head.

"Tell them 'The White Crow's Last Flight,'" urged the priest.

But Nicholas was not in the vein, and when they all urged him overmuch, he, in self-defence, pulled a knife out of his pocket and a bit of walrus ivory about the size of his thumb, and fell to carving.

"What you makin'?"

"Button," says Nicholas; "me heap hurry get him done."

"It looks more like a bird than a button," remarked the Boy.

"Him bird--him button," replied the imperturbable one.

"Half the folk-lore of the North has to do with the crow (or raven)," the priest went on. "Seeing Kaviak's feather reminded me of a native cradle-song that's a kind of a story, too. It's been roughly translated."

"Can you say it?"

"I used to know how it went."

He began in a deep voice:

"'The wind blows over the Yukon. My husband hunts deer on the Koyukun mountains. Ahmi, ahmi, sleep, little one.

There is no wood for the fire, The stone-axe is broken, my husband carries the other. Where is the soul of the sun? Hid in the dam of the beaver, waiting the spring-time. Ahmi, ahmi, sleep little one, wake not!

Look not for ukali, old woman. Long since the cache was emptied, the crow lights no more on the ridge pole. Long since, my husband departed. Why does he wait in the mountains? Ahmi, ahmi, sleep little one, softly.

Where, where, where is my own? Does he lie starving on the hillside? Why does he linger? Comes he not soon I must seek him among the mountains. Ahmi, ahmi, little one, sleep sound.

Hush! hush! hush! The crow cometh laughing. Red is his beak, his eyes glisten, the false one! "Thanks for a good meal to Kuskokala the Shamán-- On the far mountain quietly lieth your husband." Ahmi, ahmi, sleep little one, wake not.

"Twenty deers' tongues tied to the pack on his shoulders; Not a tongue in his mouth to call to his wife with. Wolves, foxes, and ravens are tearing and fighting for morsels. Tough and hard are the sinews; not so the child in your bosom." Ahmi, ahmi, sleep little one, wake not!

Over the mountain slowly staggers the hunter. Two bucks' thighs on his shoulders. Twenty deers' tongues in his belt. "Go, gather wood, kindle a fire, old woman!" Off flew the crow--liar, cheat and deceiver. Wake, oh sleeper, awake! welcome your father!

He brings you back fat, marrow, venison fresh from the mountain Tired and worn, yet he's carved you a toy of the deer's horn, While he was sitting and waiting long for the deer on the hillside. Wake! see the crow! hiding himself from the arrow; Wake, little one, wake! here is your father safe home.'"

"Who's 'Kuskokala the Shamán'?" the Boy inquired.

"Ah, better ask Nicholas," answered the priest.

But Nicholas was absorbed in his carving.

Again Mr. O'Flynn obliged, roaring with great satisfaction:

"'I'm a stout rovin' blade, and what matther my name, For I ahlways was wild, an' I'll niver be tame; An' I'll kiss putty gurrls wheriver I go, An' what's that to annyone whether or no.

_Chorus._

"'Ogedashin, den thashin, come, boys! let us drink; 'Tis madness to sorra, 'tis folly to think. For we're ahl jolly fellows wheriver we go-- Ogedashin, den thashin, na boneen sheen lo!'"

Potts was called on. No, he couldn't sing, but he could show them a trick or two. And with his grimy euchre-deck he kept his word, showing that he was not the mere handy-man, but the magician of the party. The natives, who know the cards as we know our A B C's, were enthralled, and began to look upon Potts as a creature of more than mortal skill.

Again the Boy pressed Nicholas to dance. "No, no;" and under his breath: "You come Pymeut."

Meanwhile, O'Flynn, hugging the pleasant consciousness that he had distinguished himself--his pardner, too--complained that the only contribution Mac or the Boy had made was to kick up a row. What steps were they going to take to retrieve their characters and minister to the public entertainment?

"I've supplied the decorations," said Mac in a final tone.

"Well, and the Bhoy? What good arre ye, annyway?"

"Hard to say," said the person addressed; but, thinking hard: "Would you like to see me wag my ears?" Some languid interest was manifested in this accomplishment, but it fell rather flat after Potts' splendid achievements with the euchre-deck.

"No, ye ain't good fur much as an enthertainer," said O'Flynn frankly.

Kaviak had begun to cry for more punch, and Mac was evidently growing a good deal perplexed as to the further treatment for his patient.

"Did ye be tellin' some wan, Father, that when ye found that Esquimer he had grass stuffed in his mouth? Sure, he'll be missin' that grass. Ram somethin' down his throat."

"Was it done to shorten his sufferings?" the Colonel asked in an undertone.

"No," answered the priest in the same low voice; "if they listen long to the dying, the cry gets fixed in their imagination, and they hear it after the death, and think the spirit haunts the place. Their fear and horror of the dead is beyond belief. They'll turn a dying man out of his own house, and not by the door, but through a hole in the roof. Or they pull out a log to make an opening, closing it up quick, so the spirit won't find his way back."

Kaviak continued to lament.

"Sorry we can't offer you some blubber, Kaviak."

"'Tain't that he's missin'; he's got an inexhaustible store of his own. His mistake is offerin' it to us."

"I know what's the matter with that little shaver," said the Boy. "He hasn't got any stool, and you keep him standin' on those legs of his like matches."

"Let him sit on the buffalo-skin there," said Mac gruffly.

"Don't you s'pose he's thought o' the buffalo-skin? But he'd hate it. A little fella likes to be up where he can see what's goin' on. He'd feel as lost 'way down there on the buffalo as a puppy in a corn-brake."

The Boy was standing up, looking round.

"I know. Elephas! come along, Jimmie!" In spite of remonstrance, they rushed to the door and dragged in the "fossle." When Nicholas and his friends realised what was happening, they got up grunting and protesting. "Lend a hand, Andrew," the Boy called to the man nearest.

"No--no!" objected the true son of the Church, with uncommon fervour.

"You, then, Nicholas."

_"Oo,_ ha, _oo!_ No touch! No touch!"

"What's up? You don't know what this is."

"Huh! Nicholas know plenty well. Nicholas no touch bones of dead devils." This view of the "fossle" so delighted the company that, acting on a sudden impulse, they pushed the punch-bowl out of the way, and, with a whoop, hoisted the huge thing on the table. Then the Boy seized the whimpering Kaviak, and set him high on the throne. So surprised was the topmost Spissimen that he was as quiet for a moment as the one underneath him, staring about, blinking. Then, looking down at Mac's punch-cup, he remembered his grievance, and took up the wail where he had left it off.

"Nuh, nuh! don't you do that," said the Boy with startling suddenness. "If you make that noise, I'll have to make a worse one. If you cry, Kaviak, I'll have to sing. Hmt, hmt! don't you do it." And as Kaviak, in spite of instructions, began to bawl, the Boy began to do a plantation jig, crooning monotonously:

"'Grashoppah sett'n on de swee' p'tater vine, Swee' p'tater vine, swee' p'tater vine; Grasshoppah--'"

He stopped as suddenly as he'd begun. "_Now_, will you be good?"

Kaviak drew a breath with a catch in it, looked round, and began as firmly as ever:

"Weh!--eh!--eh!"

"Sh--sh!" The Boy clapped his hands, and lugubriously intoned:

"'Dey's de badger and de bah, En de funny lil hah, En de active lil flea, En de lil armadillah Dat sleeps widouter pillah, An dey all gottah mate but me--ee--ee!'

"Farva!" Kaviak gasped.

"Say, do a nigger breakdown," solicited Potts.

"Ain't room; besides, I can't do it with blisters."

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.

For an obvious reason it is not through the utterances of the greatest that the child receives his first intimations of the beauty and the mystery of things. These come in lowly guise with familiar everyday voices, but their eloquence has the incommunicable grace of infancy, the promise of the first dawn, the menace of the first night.

"Do you remember the thing about the screech-owl and the weather signs?" said the Colonel, roused at last by the jig on his toes and the rattle of improvised "bones" almost in his face.

"Reckon I do, honey," said the Boy, his feet still flying and flapping on the hard earthen floor.

"_'Wen de screech-owl light on de gable en' En holler, Who--ool oh--oh!'_"

He danced up and hooted in Kaviak's face.

"_'Den yo' bettah keep yo eyeball peel, Kase 'e bring bad luck t' yo'. Oh--oh! oh-oh!'_"

Then, sinking his voice, dancing slowly, and glancing anxiously under the table:

"_'Wen de ole black cat widdee yalla eyes Slink round like she atterah mouse, Den yo' bettah take keer yo'self en frien's, Kase deys sholy a witch en de house.'_"

An awful pause, a shiver, and a quick change of scene, indicated by a gurgling whoop, ending in a quacking:

"_'Wen de puddle-duck'e leave de pon', En start t' comb e fedder, Den yo' bettah take yo' omberel, Kase deys gwine tubbee wet wedder.'_"

"Now comes the speckly rooster," the Colonel prompted.

The Boy crowed long and loud:

"_'Effer ole wile rooster widder speckly tail Commer crowin' befoh de do', En yo got some comp'ny a'ready, Yo's gwinter have some mo'.'_"

Then he grunted, and went on all fours. "Kaviak!" he called, "you take warnin'----

"_'Wen yo' see a pig agoin' along--'_"

Look here: Kaviak's never seen a pig! I call it a shame.

_"'Wen yo' see a pig agoin' along Widder straw en de sider 'is mouf, It'll be a tuhble winter, En yo' bettuh move down Souf.'"_

He jumped up and dashed into a breakdown, clattering the bones, and screeching:

_"'Squirl he got a bushy tail, Possum's tail am bah, Raccoon's tail am ringed all roun'-- Touch him ef yo dah! Rabbit got no tail at all, Cep a little bit o' bunch o' hah.'"_

The group on the floor, undoubtedly, liked that part of the entertainment that involved the breakdown, infinitely the best of all, but simultaneously, at its wildest moment, they all turned their heads to the door. Mac noticed the movement, listened, and then got up, lifted the latch, and cautiously looked out. The Boy caught a glimpse of the sky over Mac's shoulder.

"Jimminy Christmas!" He stopped, nearly breathless. "It can't be a fire. Say, boys! they're havin' a Blow-Out up in heaven."

The company crowded out. The sky was full of a palpitant light. An Indian appeared from round the stockade; he was still staring up at the stone chimney.

"Are we on fire?"

"How-do." He handed Father Wills a piece of dirty paper.

"Hah! Yes. All right. Andrew!"

Andrew needed no more. He bustled away to harness the dogs. The white men were staring up at the sky. "What's goin' on in heaven, Father? S'pose you call this the Aurora Borealis--hey?"

"Yes," said the priest; "and finer than we often get it. We are not far enough north for the great displays."

He went in to put on his parki.

Mac, after looking out, had shut the door and stayed behind with Kaviak.

On Father Will's return Farva, speaking apparently less to the priest than to the floor, muttered: "Better let him stop where he is till his cold's better."

The Colonel came in.

"Leave the child here!" ejaculated the priest.

"--till he's better able to travel."

"Why not?" said the Colonel promptly.

"Well, it would be a kindness to keep him a few days. I'll _have_ to travel fast tonight."

"Then it's settled." Mac bundled Kaviak into the Boy's bunk.

When the others were ready to go out again, Farva caught up his fur coat and went along with them.

The dogs were not quite ready. The priest was standing a little absentmindedly, looking up. The pale green streamers were fringed with the tenderest rose colour, and from the corona uniting them at the zenith, they shot out across the heavens, with a rapid circular and lateral motion, paling one moment, flaring up again the next.

"Wonder what makes it," said the Colonel.

"Electricity," Mac snapped out promptly.

The priest smiled.

"One mystery for another."

He turned to the Boy, and they went on together, preceding the others, a little, on the way down the trail towards the river.

"I think you must come and see us at Holy Cross--eh? Come soon;" and then, without waiting for an answer: "The Indians think these flitting lights are the souls of the dead at play. But Yagorsha says that long ago a great chief lived in the North who was a mighty hunter. It was always summer up here then, and the big chief chased the big game from one end of the year to another, from mountain to mountain and from river to sea. He killed the biggest moose with a blow of his fist, and caught whales with his crooked thumb for a hook. One long day in summer he'd had a tremendous chase after a wonderful bird, and he came home without it, deadbeat and out of temper. He lay down to rest, but the sunlight never winked, and the unending glare maddened him. He rolled, and tossed, and roared, as only the Yukon roars when the ice rushes down to the sea. But he couldn't sleep. Then in an awful fury he got up, seized the day in his great hands, tore it into little bits, and tossed them high in the air. So it was dark. And winter fell on the world for the first time. During months and months, just to punish this great crime, there was no bright sunshine; but often in the long night, while the chief was wearying for summer to come again, he'd be tantalised by these little bits of the broken day that flickered in the sky. Coming, Andrew?" he called back.

The others trooped down-hill, dogs, sleds, and all. There was a great hand-shaking and good-byeing.

Nicholas whispered:

"You come Pymeut?"

"I should just pretty nearly think I would."

"You dance heap good. Buttons no all done." He put four little ivory crows into the Boy's hands. They were rudely but cleverly carved, with eyes outlined in ink, and supplied under the breast with a neat inward-cut shank.

"Mighty fine!" The Boy examined them by the strange glow that brightened in the sky.

"You keep."

"Oh no, can't do that."

"_Yes!_" Nicholas spoke peremptorily. "Yukon men have big feast, must bring present. Me no got reindeer, me got button." He grinned. "Goo'-bye." And the last of the guests went his way.

* * * * *

It was only habit that kept the Colonel toasting by the fire before he turned in, for the cabin was as warm to-night as the South in mid-summer.

_"Grasshoppah sett'n on a swee' p'tater vine,"_

The Boy droned sleepily as he untied the leathern thongs that kept up his muckluck legs--

_"Swee' p'tater vine, swee' p'ta--"_

"All those othahs"--the Colonel waved a hand in the direction of Pymeut--"I think we dreamed 'em, Boy. You and me playing the Big Game with Fohtune. Foolishness! Klondyke? Yoh crazy. Tell me the river's hard as iron and the snow's up to the windah? Don' b'lieve a wo'd of it. We're on some plantation, Boy, down South, in the niggah quawtaws."

The Boy was turning back the covers, and balancing a moment on the side of the bunk.

_"Sett'n on a swee' p'tater vine, swee' p'ta--"_

"Great Caesar's ghost!" He jumped up, and stood staring down at the sleeping Kaviak.

"Ah--a--didn't you know? He's been left behind for a few days."

"Yes, I can see he's left behind. No, Colonel, I reckon we're in the Arctic regions all right when it comes to catchin' Esquimers in your bed!"

He pulled the furs over Kaviak and himself, and curled down to sleep.

“One work. Many languages. One reading experience.”