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.