The Faith of Men | Page 9

and drew me
over to the scales, where the weigher nonchalantly cashed him out fifty
dollars in dust.
"And now we'll drink," he said; and later, at the bar, when he lowered
his glass: "Reminds me of a little brew I had up Tattarat way. No, you
have no knowledge of the place, nor is it down on the charts. But it's up
by the rim of the Arctic Sea, not so many hundred miles from the
American line, and all of half a thousand God-forsaken souls live there,
giving and taking in marriage, and starving and dying
in-between-whiles. Explorers have overlooked them, and you will not
find them in the census of 1890. A whale- ship was pinched there once,
but the men, who had made shore over the ice, pulled out for the south
and were never heard of.
"But it was a great brew we had, Moosu and I," he added a moment
later, with just the slightest suspicion of a sigh.
I knew there were big deeds and wild doings behind that sigh, so I
haled him into a corner, between a roulette outfit and a poker layout,
and waited for his tongue to thaw.
"Had one objection to Moosu," he began, cocking his head
meditatively--"one objection, and only one. He was an Indian from
over on the edge of the Chippewyan country, but the trouble was, he'd
picked up a smattering of the Scriptures. Been campmate a season with
a renegade French Canadian who'd studied for the church. Moosu'd
never seen applied Christianity, and his head was crammed with
miracles, battles, and dispensations, and what not he didn't understand.

Otherwise he was a good sort, and a handy man on trail or over a fire.
"We'd had a hard time together and were badly knocked out when we
plumped upon Tattarat. Lost outfits and dogs crossing a divide in a fall
blizzard, and our bellies clove to our backs and our clothes were in rags
when we crawled into the village. They weren't much surprised at
seeing us--because of the whalemen--and gave us the meanest shack in
the village to live in, and the worst of their leavings to live on. What
struck me at the time as strange was that they left us strictly alone. But
Moosu explained it.
"'Shaman SICK TUMTUM,' he said, meaning the shaman, or medicine
man, was jealous, and had advised the people to have nothing to do
with us. From the little he'd seen of the whalemen, he'd learned that
mine was a stronger race, and a wiser; so he'd only behaved as shamans
have always behaved the world over. And before I get done, you'll see
how near right he was.
"'These people have a law,' said Mosu: 'whoso eats of meat must hunt.
We be awkward, you and I, O master, in the weapons of this country;
nor can we string bows nor fling spears after the manner approved.
Wherefore the shaman and Tummasook, who is chief, have put their
heads together, and it has been decreed that we work with the women
and children in dragging in the meat and tending the wants of the
hunters.'
"'And this is very wrong,' I made to answer; 'for we be better men,
Moosu, than these people who walk in darkness. Further, we should
rest and grow strong, for the way south is long, and on that trail the
weak cannot prosper.'"
"'But we have nothing,' he objected, looking about him at the rotten
timbers of the igloo, the stench of the ancient walrus meat that had been
our supper disgusting his nostrils. 'And on this fare we cannot thrive.
We have nothing save the bottle of "pain- killer," which will not fill
emptiness, so we must bend to the yoke of the unbeliever and become
hewers of wood and drawers of water. And there be good things in this
place, the which we may not have. Ah, master, never has my nose lied

to me, and I have followed it to secret caches and among the fur-bales
of the igloos. Good provender did these people extort from the poor
whalemen, and this provender has wandered into few hands. The
woman Ipsukuk, who dwelleth in the far end of the village next she
igloo of the chief, possesseth much flour and sugar, and even have my
eyes told me of molasses smeared on her face. And in the igloo of
Tummasook, the chief, there be tea--have I not seen the old pig
guzzling? And the shaman owneth a caddy of "Star" and two buckets of
prime smoking. And what have we? Nothing! Nothing!'
"But I was stunned by the word he brought of the tobacco, and made no
answer.
"And Moosu, what of his own desire, broke silence: 'And there be