ears: Yan-kee ship come down de ri-ib-er, Pull! my bully boys! Pull! D’yeh want—to know de captain ru-uns her? Pull! my bully boys! Pull! Jon-a-than Jones ob South Caho-li-in-a, Pull! my bully. He broke off abruptly, tottered with a wolfish snarl to the meat shelf, and before they could intercept was tearing with his teeth at a chunk of raw bacon. The struggle was fierce between him and Malemute Kid; but his mad strength left him as suddenly as it had come, and he weakly surrendered the spoil. Between them they got him upon a stool, where he sprawled with half his body across the table.
A small dose of whiskey strengthened him, so that he could dip a spoon into the sugar caddy which Malemute Kid placed before him. After his appetite had been somewhat cloyed, Prince, shuddering as he did so, passed him a mug of weak beef tea.
The creature’s eyes were alight with a somber frenzy, which blazed and waned with every mouthful. There was very little skin to the face. The face, for that matter, sunken and emaciated, bore little likeness to human countenance.
Frost after frost had bitten deeply, each depositing its stratum of scab upon the half-healed scar that went before. This dry, hard surface was of a bloody-black color, serrated by grievous cracks wherein the raw red flesh peeped forth. His skin garments were dirty and in tatters, and the fur of one side was singed and burned away, showing where he had lain upon his fire.
Malemute Kid pointed to where the sun-tanned hide had been cut away, strip by strip—the grim signature of famine.
‘Who—are—you?’ slowly and distinctly enunciated the Kid.
The man paid no heed.
‘Where do you come from?’ ‘Yan-kee ship come down de ri-ib-er,’ was the quavering response.
‘Don’t doubt the beggar came down the river,’ the Kid said, shaking him in an endeavor to start a more lucid flow of talk.
But the man shrieked at the contact, clapping a hand to his side in evident pain. He rose slowly to his feet, half leaning on the table.
‘She laughed at me—so—with the hate in her eye; and she—would—not—come.’ His voice died away, and he was sinking back when Malemute Kid gripped him by the wrist and shouted, ‘Who? Who would not come?’ ‘She, Unga. She laughed, and struck at me, so, and so. And then-‘ ‘Yes?’
‘And then—’ ‘And then what?’ ‘And then he lay very still in the snow a long time. He is-still in—the—snow.’ The two men looked at each other helplessly.
‘Who is in the snow?’ ‘She, Unga. She looked at me with the hate in her eye, and then—’
‘Yes, yes.’ ‘And then she took the knife, so; and once, twice—she was weak. I traveled very slow. And there is much gold in that place, very much gold.’ ‘Where is Unga?’ For all Malemute Kid knew, she might be dying a mile away. He shook the man savagely, repeating again and again, ‘Where is Unga? Who is Unga?’ ‘She—is—in—the—snow.’ ‘Go on!’ The Kid was pressing his wrist cruelly.
‘So—I—would—be—in—the snow—but—I—had—a—debt—to—pay. It—was—heavy—I—had—a-debt—to—pay—a—debt—to—pay I—had-‘ The faltering monosyllables ceased as he fumbled in his pouch and drew forth a buckskin sack. ‘A—debt—to—pay—five—pounds—of—gold-grub— stake—Mal—e—mute—Kid—I—y—’ The exhausted head dropped upon the table; nor could Malemute Kid rouse it again.
‘It’s Ulysses,’ he said quietly, tossing the bag of dust on the table. ‘Guess it’s all day with Axel Gunderson and the woman. Come on, let’s get him between the blankets. He’s Indian; he’ll pull through and tell a tale besides.’ As they cut his garments from him, near his right breast could be seen two unhealed, hard-lipped knife thrusts.
III
‘I will talk of the things which were in my own way; but you will understand. I will begin at the beginning, and tell of myself and the woman, and, after that, of the man.’ He of the Otter Skins drew over to the stove as do men who have been deprived of fire and are afraid the Promethean gift may vanish at any moment. Malemute Kid picked up the slush lamp and placed it so its light might fall upon the face of the narrator. Prince slid his body over the edge of the bunk and joined them.
‘I am Naass, a chief, and the son of a chief, born between a sunset and a rising, on the dark seas, in my father’s oomiak. All of a night the men toiled at the paddles, and the women cast out the waves which threw in upon us, and we fought with the storm. The salt spray froze upon my mother’s breast till her breath passed with the passing of the tide. But I—I raised my voice with the wind and the storm, and lived.
‘We dwelt in Akatan—’ ‘Where?’ asked Malemute Kid.
‘Akatan, which is in the Aleutians; Akatan, beyond Chignik, beyond Kardalak, beyond Unimak. As I say, we dwelt in Akatan, which lies in the midst of the sea on the edge of the world. We farmed the salt seas for the fish, the seal, and the otter; and our homes shouldered about one another on the rocky strip between the rim of the forest and the yellow beach where our kayaks lay. We were not many, and the world was very small. There were strange lands to the east—islands like Akatan; so we thought all the world was islands and did not mind.
‘I was different from my people. In the sands of the beach were the crooked timbers and wave-warped planks of a boat such as my people never built; and I remember on the point of the island which overlooked the ocean three ways there stood a pine tree which never grew there, smooth and straight and tall. It is said the two men came to that spot, turn about, through many days, and watched with the passing of the light. These two men came from out of the sea in the boat which lay in pieces on the beach. And they were white like you, and weak as the little children when the seal have gone away and the hunters come home empty. I know of these things from the old men and the old women, who got them from their fathers and mothers before them. These strange white men did not take kindly to our ways at first, but they grew strong, what of the fish and the oil, and fierce. And they built them each his own house, and took the pick of our women, and in time children came. Thus he was born who was to become the father of my father’s father.
‘As I said, I was different from my people, for I carried the strong, strange blood of this white man who came out of the sea. It is said we had other laws in the days before these men; but they were fierce and quarrelsome, and fought with our men till there were no more left who dared to fight. Then they made themselves chiefs, and took away our old laws, and gave us new ones, insomuch that the man was the son of his father, and not his mother, as our way had been. They also ruled that the son, first-born, should have all things which were his father’s before him, and that the brothers and sisters should shift for themselves. And they gave us other laws. They showed us new ways in the catching of fish and the killing of bear which were thick in the woods; and they taught us to lay by bigger stores for the time of famine. And these things were good.
‘But when they had become chiefs, and there were no more men to face their anger, they fought, these strange white men, each with the other. And the one whose blood I carry drove his seal spear the length of an arm through the other’s body. Their children took up the fight, and their children’s children; and there was great hatred between them, and black doings, even to my time, so that in each family but one lived to pass down the blood of them that went before. Of my blood I was alone; of the other man’s there was but a girl. Unga, who lived with her mother. Her father and my father did not come back from the fishing one night; but afterward they washed up to the beach on the big tides, and they held very close to each other.
