Northland Stories Read Online Free PDF Page B

out.”
    â€œI’ll bank another proposition against that,” replied Malemute Kid, reversing the frozen bread placed before the fire to thaw. “We’ll eat Shookum before the trip is over. What d’ ye say, Ruth?”
    The Indian woman settled the coffee with a piece of ice, glanced from Malemute Kid to her husband, then at the dogs, but vouchsafed no reply. It was such a palpable truism that none was necessary. Two hundred miles of unbroken trail in prospect, with a scant six days’ grub for themselves and none for the dogs, could admit no other alternative. The two men and the woman grouped about the fire and began their meagre meal. The dogs lay in their harnesses, for it was a midday halt, and watched each mouthful enviously.
    â€œNo more lunches after to-day,” said Malemute Kid. “And we’ve got to keep a close eye on the dogs,—they’re getting vicious. They’d just as soon pull a fellow down as not, if they get a chance.”
    â€œAnd I was president of an Epworth once, and taught in the Sunday school.” Having irrelevantly delivered himself of this, Mason fell into a dreamy contemplation of his steaming moccasins, but was aroused by Ruth filling his cup. “Thank God, we’ve got slathers of tea! I’ve seen it growing, down in Tennessee. What would n’t I give for a hot corn pone just now! Never mind, Ruth; you won’t starve much longer, nor wear moccasins either.”
    The woman threw off her gloom at this, and in her eyes welled up a great love for her white lord,—the first white man she had ever seen,—the first man whom she had known to treat a woman as something better than a mere animal or beast of burden.
    â€œYes, Ruth,” continued her husband, having recourse to the macaronic jargon in which it was alone possible for them to understand each other; “wait till we clean up and pull for the Outside. We’ll take the White Man’s canoe and go to the Salt Water. Yes, bad water, rough water,—great mountains dance up and down all the time. And so big, so far, so far away,—you travel ten sleep, twenty sleep, forty sleep” (he graphically enumerated the days on his fingers), “all the time water, bad water. Then you come to great village, plenty people, just the same mosquitoes next summer. Wigwams oh, so high,—ten, twenty pines. Hi-yu skookum!”
    He paused impotently, cast an appealing glance at Malemute Kid, then laboriously placed the twenty pines, end on end, by sign language. Malemute Kid smiled with cheery cynicism; but Ruth’s eyes were wide with wonder, and with pleasure; for she half believed he was joking, and such condescension pleased her poor woman’s heart.
    â€œAnd then you step into a—a box, and pouf! up you go.” He tossed his empty cup in the air by way of illustration, and as he deftly caught it, cried: “And biff! down you come. Oh, great medicine-men! You go Fort Yukon, I go Arctic City,—twenty—five sleep,—big string, all the time,—I catch him string,—I say, ‘Hello, Ruth! How are ye?’—and you say, ‘Is that my good husband?’—and I say ‘Yes,’—and you say, ‘No can bake good bread, no more soda,’—then I say, ‘Look in cache, under flour; good-by.’ You look and catch plenty soda. All the time you Fort Yukon, me Arctic City. Hi-yu medicine-man!”
    Ruth smiled so ingenuously at the fairy story, that both men burst into laughter. A row among the dogs cut short the wonders of the Outside, and by the time the snarling combatants were separated, she had lashed the sleds and all was ready for the trail.
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    â€œMush! Baldy! Hi! Mush on!” Mason worked his whip smartly, and as the dogs whined low in the traces, broke out the sled with the gee-pole. Ruth followed with the second team, leaving Malemute Kid, who had helped her start, to bring up the rear.