The Faith of Men | Page 4

of
the Klondike in the archaic vernacular, calling it the Reindeer River--a
conceited custom that the Old Timers employ against the
CHECHAQUAS and all tenderfeet in general. But he did it so naively
and as such a matter of course, that there was no sting, and I forgave
him. He also had it in view, he said, before he crossed the divide into
the Yukon, to make a little run up Fort o' Good Hope way.
Now Fort o' Good Hope is a far journey to the north, over and beyond
the Circle, in a place where the feet of few men have trod; and when a
nondescript ragamuffin comes in out of the night, from nowhere in
particular, to sit by one's fire and discourse on such in terms of
"trapsing" and "a little run," it is fair time to rouse up and shake off the
dream. Wherefore I looked about me; saw the fly and, underneath, the
pine boughs spread for the sleeping furs; saw the grub sacks, the
camera, the frosty breaths of the dogs circling on the edge of the light;
and, above, a great streamer of the aurora, bridging the zenith from
south-east to north-west. I shivered. There is a magic in the Northland
night, that steals in on one like fevers from malarial marshes. You are
clutched and downed before you are aware. Then I looked to the
snowshoes, lying prone and crossed where he had flung them. Also I
had an eye to my tobacco pouch. Half, at least, of its goodly store had
vamosed. That settled it. Fancy had not tricked me after all.
Crazed with suffering, I thought, looking steadfastly at the man-- one

of those wild stampeders, strayed far from his bearings and wandering
like a lost soul through great vastnesses and unknown deeps. Oh, well,
let his moods slip on, until, mayhap, he gathers his tangled wits
together. Who knows?--the mere sound of a fellow- creature's voice
may bring all straight again.
So I led him on in talk, and soon I marvelled, for he talked of game and
the ways thereof. He had killed the Siberian wolf of westernmost
Alaska, and the chamois in the secret Rockies. He averred he knew the
haunts where the last buffalo still roamed; that he had hung on the
flanks of the caribou when they ran by the hundred thousand, and slept
in the Great Barrens on the musk-ox's winter trail.
And I shifted my judgment accordingly (the first revision, but by no
account the last), and deemed him a monumental effigy of truth. Why it
was I know not, but the spirit moved me to repeat a tale told to me by a
man who had dwelt in the land too long to know better. It was of the
great bear that hugs the steep slopes of St Elias, never descending to the
levels of the gentler inclines. Now God so constituted this creature for
its hillside habitat that the legs of one side are all of a foot longer than
those of the other. This is mighty convenient, as will be reality admitted.
So I hunted this rare beast in my own name, told it in the first person,
present tense, painted the requisite locale, gave it the necessary
garnishings and touches of verisimilitude, and looked to see the man
stunned by the recital.
Not he. Had he doubted, I could have forgiven him. Had he objected,
denying the dangers of such a hunt by virtue of the animal's inability to
turn about and go the other way--had he done this, I say, I could have
taken him by the hand for the true sportsman that he was. Not he. He
sniffed, looked on me, and sniffed again; then gave my tobacco due
praise, thrust one foot into my lap, and bade me examine the gear. It
was a MUCLUC of the Innuit pattern, sewed together with sinew
threads, and devoid of beads or furbelows. But it was the skin itself that
was remarkable. In that it was all of half an inch thick, it reminded me
of walrus-hide; but there the resemblance ceased, for no walrus ever
bore so marvellous a growth of hair. On the side and ankles this hair

was well-nigh worn away, what of friction with underbrush and snow;
but around the top and down the more sheltered back it was coarse,
dirty black, and very thick. I parted it with difficulty and looked
beneath for the fine fur that is common with northern animals, but
found it in this case to be absent. This, however, was compensated for
by the length. Indeed, the tufts that had survived wear and tear
measured all of seven or eight inches.
I looked up into the man's face, and he pulled