KURILLA
"And I swear to you Athenians--by the dog I swear!--for I must tell you
the truth----."--SOCRATES.
The voice that had asked the question belonged to one of two stranded
Klondykers, as it turned out, who had burrowed a hole in the snow and
faced it with drift-wood. They had plenty of provisions, enough to
spare, and meant to stay here till the steamers ran, for the younger of
the pair had frosted his feet and was crippled.
The last of their dogs had been frozen to death a few miles back on the
trail, and they had no idea, apparently, how near they were to that
"first Indian settlement this side of Kaltag" reached by the Colonel
and the Boy after two days of rest and one day of travel.
No one ever sailed more joyfully into the Bay of Naples, or saw with
keener rapture Constantinople's mosques and minarets arise, than did
these ice-armoured travellers, rounding the sharp bend in the river,
sight the huts and hear the dogs howl on the farther shore.
"First thing I do, sah, is to speculate in a dog-team," said the
Colonel.
Most of the bucks were gone off hunting, and most of the dogs were with
them. Only three left in the village--but they were wonderful fellows
those three! Where were they? Well, the old man you see before you,
"_me_--got two."
He led the way behind a little shack, a troop of children following,
and there were two wolf-dogs, not in the best condition, one reddish,
with a white face and white forelegs, the other grey with a black
splotch on his chest and a white one on his back.
"How much?"
"Fiftee dolla."
"And this one?"
"Fiftee dolla." As the Colonel hesitated, the old fellow added: "Bohf
eightee dolla."
"Oh, eightee for the two?"
He nodded.
"Well, where's the other?"
"Hein?"
"The other--the third dog. Two are no good."
"Yes. Yes," he said angrily, "heap good dog."
"Well, I'll give you eighty dollars for these" (the Ingalik, taking a
pipe out of his parki, held out one empty hand); "but who's got the
other?"
For answer, a head-shake, the outstretched hand, and the words,
"Eightee dolla--tabak--tea."
"Wait," interrupted the Boy, turning to the group of children; "where's
the other dog?"
Nobody answered. The Boy pantomimed. "We want _three_ dogs." He held up
as many fingers. "We got two--see?--must have one more." A lad of about
thirteen turned and began pointing with animation towards a slowly
approaching figure.
"Peetka--him got."
The old man began to chatter angrily, and abuse the lad for introducing
a rival on the scene. The strangers hailed the new-comer.
"How much is your dog?"
Peetka stopped, considered, studied the scene immediately before him,
and then the distant prospect.
"You got dog?"
He nodded.
"Well, how much?"
"Sixty dolla."
"_One_ dog, sixty?"
He nodded.
"But this man says the price is eighty for two."
"My dog--him Leader."
After some further conversation, "Where is your dog?" demanded the
Colonel.
The new-comer whistled and called. After some waiting, and
well-simulated anger on the part of the owner, along comes a dusky
Siwash, thin, but keen-looking, and none too mild-tempered.
The children all brightened and craned, as if a friend, or at least a
highly interesting member of the community, had appeared on the scene.
"The Nigger's the best!" whispered the Boy.
"Him bully," said the lad, and seemed about to pat him, but the Siwash
snarled softly, raising his lip and showing his Gleaming fangs. The lad
stepped back respectfully, but grinned, reiterating, "Bully dog."
"Well, I'll give you fifty for him," said the Colonel.
"Sixty."
"Well, all right, since he's a leader. Sixty."
The owner watched the dog as it walked round its master smelling the
snow, then turning up its pointed nose interrogatively and waving its
magnificent feathery tail. The oblique eyes, acute angle of his short
ears, the thick neck, broad chest, and heavy forelegs, gave an
impression of mingled alertness and strength you will not see surpassed
in any animal that walks the world. Jet-black, except for his grey
muzzle and broad chest, he looks at you with the face of his near
ancestor, the grizzled wolf. If on short acquaintance you offer any
familiarity, as the Colonel ventured to do, and he shows his double row
of murderous-looking fangs, the reminder of his fierce forefathers is
even more insistent. Indeed, to this day your Siwash of this sort will
have his moments of nostalgia, in which he turns back to his wild
kinsfolk, and mates again with the wolf.
When the Leader looked at the Colonel with that indescribably horrid
smile, the owner's approval of the proud beast seemed to overcome his
avarice.
"Me no sell," he decided abruptly, and walked off in lordly fashion
with his dusky companion at his side, the Leader curling his feathery
tail arc-like over his back, and walking with an air princes might
envy.
The Colonel stood staring. Vainly the Boy called, "Come back. Look
here! Hi!" Neither Siwash nor Ingalik took the smallest notice. The Boy
went after them, eliciting only airs of surly indifference and repeated
"Me no sell." It was a bitter disappointment, especially to the Boy. He
liked the looks of that Nigger dog. When, plunged in gloom, he returned
to the group about the Colonel, he found his pardner asking about
"feed." No, the old man hadn't enough fish to spare even a few days'
supply. Would anybody here sell fish? No, he didn't think so. All the
men who had teams were gone to the hills for caribou; there was nobody
to send to the Summer Caches. He held out his hand again for the first
instalment of the "eightee dolla," in kind, that he might put it in his
pipe.
"But dogs are no good to us without something to feed 'em."
The Ingalik looked round as one seeking counsel.
"Get fish tomalla."
"No, sir. To-day's the only day in my calendar. No buy dogs till we get
fish."
When the negotiations fell through the Indian took the failure far more
philosophically than the white men, as was natural. The old fellow
could quite well get on without "eightee dolla"--could even get on
without the tobacco, tea, sugar, and matches represented by that sum,
but the travellers could not without dogs get to Minóok. It had been
very well to feel set up because they had done the thing that everybody
said was impossible. It had been a costly victory. Yes, it had come
high. "And, after all, if we don't get dogs we're beaten."
"Oh, beaten be blowed! We'll toddle along somehow."
"Yes, we'll toddle along _if_ we get dogs."
And the Boy knew the Colonel was right.
They inquired about Kaltag.
"I reckon we'd better push ahead while we can," said the Colonel. So
they left the camp that same evening intending to "travel with the
moon." The settlement was barely out of sight when they met a squaw
dragging a sled-load of salmon. Here was luck! "And now we'll go back
and get those two dogs."
As it was late, and trading with the natives, even for a fish, was a
matter of much time and patience, they decided not to hurry the dog
deal. It was bound to take a good part of the evening, at any rate.
Well, another night's resting up was welcome enough.
While the Colonel was re-establishing himself in the best cabin, the
Boy cached the sled and then went prowling about. As he fully intended,
he fell in with the Leader--that "bully Nigger dog." His master not in
sight--nobody but some dirty children and the stranger there to see how
the Red Dog, in a moment of aberration, dared offer insolence to the
Leader. It all happened through the Boy's producing a fish, and
presenting it on bended knee at a respectful distance. The Leader
bestowed a contemptuous stare upon the stranger and pointedly turned
his back. The Red Dog came "loping" across the snow. As he made for the
fish the Leader quietly headed him off, pointed his sharp ears, and
just looked the other fellow out of countenance. Red said things under
his breath as he turned away. The more he thought the situation over
the more he felt himself outraged. He looked round over his shoulder.
There they still were, the stranger holding out the fish, the Leader
turning his back on it, but telegraphing Red at the same time _not to
dare!_ It was more than dog-flesh could bear; Red bounded back,
exploding in snarls. No sound out of the Leader. Whether this unnatural
calm misled Red, he came up closer, braced his forelegs, and thrust his
tawny muzzle almost into the other dog's face, drew back his lips from
all those shining wicked teeth, and uttered a muffled hiss.
Well, it was magnificently done, and it certainly looked as if the
Leader was going to have a troubled evening. But he didn't seem to
think so. He "fixed" the Red Dog as one knowing the power of the
master's eye to quell. Red's reply, unimaginably bold, was, as the Boy
described it to the Colonel, "to give the other fella the curse." The
Boy was proud of Red's pluck--already looking upon him as his own--but
he jumped up from his ingratiating attitude, still grasping the dried
fish. It would be a shame if that Leader got chewed up! And there was
Red, every tooth bared, gasping for gore, and with each passing second
seeming to throw a deeper damnation into his threat, and to brace
himself more firmly for the hurling of the final doom.
At that instant, the stranger breathing quick and hard, the elder
children leaning forward, some of the younger drawing back in
terror--if you'll believe it, the Leader blinked in a bored way, and
sat down on the snow. A question only of last moments now, poor brute!
and the bystanders held their breath. But no! Red, to be sure, broke
into the most awful demonstrations, and nearly burst himself with fury;
but he backed away, as though the spectacle offered by the Leader were
too disgusting for a decent dog to look at. He went behind the shack
and told the Spotty One. In no time they were back, approaching the Boy
and the fish discreetly from behind. Such mean tactics roused the
Leader's ire. He got up and flew at them. They made it hot for him, but
still the Leader seemed to be doing pretty well for himself, when the
old Ingalik (whom the Boy had sent a child to summon) hobbled up with a
raw-hide whip, and laid it on with a practised hand, separating the
combatants, kicking them impartially all round, and speaking injurious
words.
"Are your two hurt?" inquired the future owner anxiously.
The old fellow shook his head.
"Fur thick," was the reassuring answer; and once more the Boy realised
that these canine encounters, though frequently ending in death, often
look and sound much more awful than they are.
As the Leader feigned to be going home, he made a dash in passing at
the stranger's fish. It was held tight, and the pirate got off with
only a fragment. Leader gave one swallow and looked back to see how the
theft was being taken. That surprising stranger simply stood there
laughing, and holding out the rest of a fine fat fish! Leader
considered a moment, looked the alien up and down, came back, all on
guard for sudden rushes, sly kicks, and thwackings, to pay him out. But
nothing of the kind. The Nigger dog said as plain as speech could make
it:
"You cheechalko person, you look as if you're actually offering me that
fish in good faith. But I'd be a fool to think so."
The stranger spoke low and quietly.
They talked for some time.
The owner of the two had shuffled off home again, with Spotty and Red
at his heels.
The Leader came quite near, looking almost docile; but he snapped
suddenly at the fish with an ugly gleam of eye and fang. The Boy nearly
made the fatal mistake of jumping, but he controlled the impulse, and
merely held tight to what was left of the salmon. He stood quite still,
offering it with fair words. The Leader walked all round him, and
seemed with difficulty to recover from his surprise. The Boy felt that
they were just coming to an understanding, when up hurries Peetka,
suspicious and out of sorts.
_"My dog!"_ he shouted. "No sell white man my dog. Huh! ho--_oh_ no!"
He kicked the Leader viciously, and drove him home, abusing him all the
way. The wonder was that the wolfish creature didn't fly at his
master's throat and finish him.
Certainly the stranger's sympathies were all with the four-legged one
of the two brutes.
"--something about the Leader--" the Boy said sadly, telling the
Colonel what had happened. "Well, sir, I'd give a hundred dollars to
own that dog."
"So would I," was the dry rejoinder, "if I were a millionaire like
you."
* * * * *
After supper, their host, who had been sent out to bring in the owner
of Red and Spotty, came back saying, "He come. All come. Me tell--you
from below Holy Cross!" He laughed and shook his head in a
well-pantomimed incredulity, representing popular opinion outside. Some
of the bucks, he added, who had not gone far, had got back with small
game.
"And dogs?"
"No. Dogs in the mountains. Hunt moose--caribou."
The old Ingalik came in, followed by others. "Some" of the bucks? There
seemed no end to the throng.
Opposite the white men the Indians sat in a semicircle, with the sole
intent, you might think, of staring all night at the strangers. Yet
they had brought in Arctic hares and grouse, and even a haunch of
venison. But they laid these things on the floor beside them, and sat
with grave unbroken silence till the strangers should declare
themselves. They had also brought, or permitted to follow, not only
their wives and daughters, but their children, big and little.
Behind the semicircle of men, three or four deep, were ranged the ranks
of youth--boys and girls from six to fourteen--standing as silent as
their elders, but eager, watchful, carrying king salmon, dried
deer-meat, boot-soles, thongs for snow-shoes, rabbits, grouse. A little
fellow of ten or eleven had brought in the Red Dog, and was trying to
reconcile him to his close quarters. The owner of Red and Spotty sat
with empty hands at the semicircle's farthest end. But he was the
capitalist of the village, and held himself worthily, yet not quite
with the high and mighty unconcern of the owner of the Leader.
Peetka came in late, bringing in the Nigger dog against the Nigger
dog's will, just to tantalise the white men with the sight of something
they couldn't buy from the poor Indian. Everybody made way for Peetka
and his dog, except the other dog. Several people had to go to the
assistance of the little boy to help him to hold Red.
"Just as well, perhaps," said the Colonel, "that we aren't likely to
get all three."
"Oh, if they worked together they'd be all right," answered the Boy.
"I've noticed that before." But the Leader, meanwhile, was flatly
refusing to stay in the same room with Red. He howled and snapped and
raged. So poor Red was turned out, and the little boy mourned loudly.
Behind the children, a row of squaws against the wall, with and without
babies strapped at their backs. Occasionally a young girl would push
aside those in front of her, craning and staring to take in the
astonishing spectacle of the two white men who had come so far without
dogs--pulling a hand-sled a greater distance than any Indian had ever
done--if they could be believed!
Anyhow, these men with their sack of tea and magnificent bundle of
matches, above all with their tobacco--they could buy out the
town--everything except Peetka's dog.
The Colonel and the Boy opened the ball by renewing their joint offer
of eighty dollars for Red and Spotty. Although this had been the old
Ingalik's own price, it was discussed fully an hour by all present
before the matter could be considered finally settled, even then the
Colonel knew it was safest not to pay till just upon leaving. But he
made a little present of tobacco in token of satisfactory arrangement.
The old man's hands trembled excitedly as he pulled out his pipe and
filled it. The bucks round him, and even a couple of the women at the
back, begged him for some. He seemed to say, "Do your own deal; the
strangers have plenty more."
By-and-by, in spite of the limited English of the community, certain
facts stood out: that Peetka held the white man in avowed detestation,
that he was the leading spirit of the place, that they had all been
suffering from a tobacco famine, and that much might be done by a
judicious use of Black Jack and Long Green. The Colonel set forth the
magnificent generosity of which he would be capable, could he secure a
good Leader. But Peetka, although he looked at his empty pipe with
bitterness, shook his head.
Everybody in the village would profit, the Colonel went on; everybody
should have a present if--
Peetka interrupted with a snarl, and flung out low words of
contemptuous refusal.
The Leader waked from a brief nap cramped and uneasy, and began to howl
in sympathy. His master stood up, the better to deliver a brutal kick.
This seemed to help the Leader to put up with cramp and confinement,
just as one great discomfort will help his betters to forget several
little ones. But the Boy had risen with angry eyes. Very well, he said
impulsively; if he and his pardner couldn't get a third dog (two were
very little good) they would not stock fresh meat here. In vain the
Colonel whispered admonition. No, sir, they would wait till they got to
the next village.
"Belly far," said a young hunter, placing ostentatiously in front his
brace of grouse.
"We're used to going belly far. Take all your game away, and go home."
A sorrowful silence fell upon the room. They sat for some time like
that, no one so much as moving, till a voice said, "We want tobacco,"
and a general murmur of assent arose. Peetka roused himself, pulled out
of his shirt a concave stone and a little woody-looking knot. The Boy
leaned forward to see what it was. A piece of dried fungus--the kind
you sometimes see on the birches up here. Peetka was hammering a
fragment of it into powder, with his heavy clasp-knife, on the concave
stone. He swept the particles into his pipe and applied to one of the
fish-selling women for a match, lit up, and lounged back against the
Leader, smiling disagreeably at the strangers. A little laugh at their
expense went round the room. Oh, it wasn't easy to get ahead of Peetka!
But even if he chose to pretend that he didn't want cheechalko tobacco,
it was very serious--it was desperate--to see all that Black Jack going
on to the next village. Several of the hitherto silent bucks
remonstrated with Peetka--even one of the women dared raise her voice.
She had not been able to go for fish: where was _her_ tobacco and tea?
Peetka burst into voluble defence of his position. Casting occasional
looks of disdain upon the strangers, he addressed most of his remarks
to the owner of Red and Spotty. Although the Colonel could not
understand a word, he saw the moment approaching when that person would
go back on his bargain. With uncommon pleasure he could have throttled
Peetka.
The Boy, to create a diversion, had begun talking to a young hunter in
the front row about "the Long Trail," and, seeing that several others
craned and listened, he spoke louder, more slowly, dropping out all
unnecessary or unusual words. Very soon he had gained an audience and
Peetka had lost one. As the stranger went on describing their
experiences the whole room listened with an attentiveness that would
have been flattering had it been less strongly dashed with unbelief.
From beyond Anvik they had come? Like that--with no dogs? What! From
below Koserefsky? Not really? Peetka grunted and shook his head. Did
they think the Ingaliks were children? Without dogs that journey was
impossible. Low whispers and gruff exclamations filled the room. White
men were great liars. They pretended that in their country the bacon
had legs, and could run about, and one had been heard to say he had
travelled in a thing like a steamboat, only it could go without water
under it--ran over the dry land on strips of iron--ran quicker than any
steamer! Oh, they were awful liars. But these two, who pretended they'd
dragged a sled all the way from Holy Cross, they were the biggest liars
of all. Just let them tell that yarn to Unookuk. They all laughed at
this, and the name ran round the room.
"Who is Unookuk?"
"Him guide."
"Him know."
"Where is him?" asked the Boy.
"Him sick."
But there was whispering and consultation. This was evidently a case
for the expert. Two boys ran out, and the native talk went on,
unintelligible save for the fact that it centred round Unookuk. In a
few minutes the boys came back with a tall, fine-looking native, about
sixty years old, walking lame, and leaning on a stick. The semicircle
opened to admit him. He limped over to the strangers, and stood looking
at them gravely, modestly, but with careful scrutiny.
The Boy held out his hand.
"How do you do?"
"How do you do?" echoed the new-comer, and he also shook hands with the
Colonel before he sat down.
"Are you Unookuk?"
"Yes. How far you come?"
Peetka said something rude, before the strangers had time to answer,
and all the room went into titters. But Unookuk listened with dignity
while the Colonel repeated briefly the story already told. Plainly it
stumped Unookuk.
"Come from Anvik?" he repeated.
"Yes; stayed with Mr. Benham."
"Oh, Benham!" The trader's familiar name ran round the room with
obvious effect. "It is good to have A. C. Agent for friend," said
Unookuk guardedly. "Everybody know Benham."
"He is not A. C. Agent much longer," volunteered the Boy.
"That so?"
"No; he will go 'on his own' after the new agent gets in this spring."
"It is true," answered Unookuk gravely, for the first time a little
impressed, for this news was not yet common property. Still, they could
have heard it from some passer with a dog-team. The Boy spoke of Holy
Cross, and Unookuk's grave unbelief was painted on every feature.
"It was good you get to Holy Cross before the big storm," he said, with
a faint smile of tolerance for the white man's tall story. But Peetka
laughed aloud.
"What good English you speak!" said the Boy, determined to make friends
with the most intelligent-appearing native he had seen.
"Me; I am Kurilla!" said Unookuk, with a quiet magnificence. Then,
seeing no electric recognition of the name, he added: "You savvy
Kurilla!"
The Colonel with much regret admitted that he did not.
"But I am Dall's guide--Kurilla."
"Oh, Dall's guide, are you," said the Boy, without a glimmer of who
Dall was, or for what, or to what, he was "guided." "Well, Kurilla,
we're pleased and proud to meet you," adding with some presence of
mind, "And how's Dall?"
"It is long I have not hear. We both old now. I hurt my knee on the ice
when I come down from Nulato for caribou."
"Why do you have two names?"
"Unookuk, Nulato name. My father big Nulato Shamán. Him killed, mother
killed, everybody killed in Koyukuk massacre. They forget kill me. Me
kid. Russians find Unookuk in big wood. Russians give food. I stay with
Russians--them call Unookuk 'Kurilla.' Dall call Unookuk 'Kurilla.'"
"Dall--Dall," said the Colonel to the Boy; "was that the name of the
explorer fella--"
Fortunately the Boy was saved from need to answer.
"First white man go down Yukon to the sea," said Kurilla with pride.
"Me Dall's guide."
"Oh, wrote a book, didn't he? Name's familiar somehow," said the
Colonel.
Kurilla bore him out.
"Mr. Dall great man. Thirty year he first come up here with Survey
people. Make big overland tel-ee-grab."
"Of course. I've heard about that." The Colonel turned to the Boy. "It
was just before the Russians sold out. And when a lot of exploring and
surveying and pole-planting was done here and in Siberia, the Atlantic
cable was laid and knocked the overland scheme sky-high."
Kurilla gravely verified these facts.
"And me, Dall's chief guide. Me with Dall when he make portage from
Unalaklik to Kaltag. He see the Yukon first time. He run down to be
first on the ice. Dall and the coast natives stare, like so"--Kurilla
made a wild-eyed, ludicrous face--"and they say: 'It is not a river--it
is another sea!'"
"No wonder. I hear it's ten miles wide up by the flats, and even a
little below where we wintered, at Ikogimeut, it's four miles across
from bank to bank."
Kurilla looked at the Colonel with dignified reproach. Why did he go on
lying about his journey like that to an expert?
"Even at Holy Cross--" the Boy began, but Kurilla struck in:
"When you there?"
"Oh, about three weeks ago."
Peetka made remarks in Ingalik.
"Father MacManus, him all right?" asked Kurilla, politely cloaking his
cross-examination.
"MacManus? Do you mean Wills, or the Superior, Father Brachet?"
"Oh yes! MacManus at Tanana." He spoke as though inadvertently he had
confused the names. As the strangers gave him the winter's news from
Holy Cross, his wonder and astonishment grew.
Presently, "Do you know my friend Nicholas of Pymeut?" asked the Boy.
Kurilla took his empty pipe out of his mouth and smiled in broad
surprise. "Nicholas!" repeated several others. It was plain the Pymeut
pilot enjoyed a wide repute.
The Boy spoke of the famine and Ol' Chief's illness.
"It is true," said Unookuk gravely, and turning, he added something in
Ingalik to the company. Peetka answered back as surly as ever. But the
Boy went on, telling how the Shaman had cured Ol' Chief, and that
turned out to be a surprisingly popular story. Peetka wouldn't
interrupt it, even to curse the Leader for getting up and stretching
himself. When the dog--feeling that for some reason discipline was
relaxed--dared to leave his cramped quarters, and come out into the
little open space between the white men and the close-packed assembly,
the Boy forced himself to go straight on with his story as if he had
not observed the liberty the Leader was taking. When, after standing
there an instant, the dog came over and threw himself down at the
stranger's feet as if publicly adopting him, the white story-teller
dared not meet Peetka's eye. He was privately most uneasy at the Nigger
dog's tactless move, and he hurried on about how Brother Paul caught
the Shamán, and about the Penitential Journey--told how, long before
that, early in the Fall, Nicholas had got lost, making the portage from
St. Michael's, and how the white camp had saved him from starvation;
how in turn the Pymeuts had pulled the speaker out of a blow-hole; what
tremendous friends the Pymeuts were with these particular, very good
sort of white men. Here he seemed to allow by implication for Peetka's
prejudice--there were two kinds of pale-face strangers--and on an
impulse he drew out Muckluck's medal. He would have them to know, so
highly were these present specimens of the doubtful race regarded by
the Pymeuts--such friends were they, that Nicholas' sister had given
him this for an offering to Yukon Inua, that the Great Spirit might
help them on their way. He owned himself wrong to have delayed this
sacrifice. He must to-morrow throw it into the first blow-hole he came
to--unless indeed... his eye caught Kurilla's. With the help of his
stick the old Guide pulled his big body up on his one stout leg,
hobbled nearer and gravely eyed Muckluck's offering as it swung to and
fro on its walrus-string over the Leader's head. The Boy, quite
conscious of some subtle change in the hitherto immobile face of the
Indian, laid the token in his hand. Standing there in the centre of the
semicircle between the assembly and the dog, Kurilla turned the Great
Katharine's medal over, examining it closely, every eye in the room
upon him.
When he lifted his head there was a rustle of expectation and a craning
forward.
"It is the same." Kurilla spoke slowly like one half in a dream. "When
I go down river, thirty winter back, with the Great Dall, he try buy
this off Nicholas's mother. She wear it on string red Russian beads.
Oh, it is a thing to remember!" He nodded his grey head significantly,
but he went on with the bare evidence: "When _John J. Healy_ make last
trip down this fall--Nicholas pilot you savvy--they let him take his
sister, Holy Cross to Pymeut. I see she wear this round neck."
The weight of the medal carried the raw-hide necklace slipping through
his fingers. Slowly now, with even impulse, the silver disc swung
right, swung left, like the pendulum of a clock. Even the Nigger dog
seemed hypnotised, following the dim shine of the tarnished token.
"I say Nicholas's sister: 'It is thirty winters I see that silver
picture first; I give you two dolla for him.' She say 'No.' I say, 'Gi'
fi' dolla.' 'No.' I sit and think far back--thirty winters back. 'I gi'
ten dolla,' I say. She say, 'I no sell; no--not for a hunner'--but she
_give_ it him! for to make Yukon Inua to let him go safe. Hein? Savvy?"
And lapsing into Ingalik, he endorsed this credential not to be denied.
"It is true," he wound up in English. The "Autocratrix Russorum" was
solemnly handed back. "You have make a brave journey. It is I who
unnerstan'--I, too, when I am young, I go with Dall on the Long Trail.
_We had dogs._" All the while, from all about the Leader's owner, and
out of every corner of the crowded room, had come a spirited
punctuation of Kurilla's speech--nods and grunts. "Yes, perhaps _these_
white men deserved dogs--even Peetka's!"
Kurilla limped back to his place, but turned to the Ingaliks before he
sat down, and bending painfully over his stick, "Not Kurilla," he said,
as though speaking of one absent--"not _Dall_ make so great journey, no
dogs. Kurilla? Best guide in Yukon forty year. Kurilla say: 'Must have
dogs--men like that!'" He limped back again and solemnly offered his
hand to each of the travellers in turn. "Shake!" says he. Then, as
though fascinated by the silver picture, he dropped down by the Boy,
staring absently at the Great Katharine's effigy. The general murmur
was arrested by a movement from Peetka--he took his pipe out of his
mouth and says he, handsomely:
"No liars. Sell dog," adding, with regretful eye on the apostate
Leader, "Him bully dog!"
And that was how the tobacco famine ended, and how the white men got
their team.