Sitka Charley smoked his pipe and gazed thoughtfully at the _Police
Gazette_ illustration on the wall. For half an hour he had been
steadily regarding it, and for half an hour I had been slyly watching
him. Something was going on in that mind of his, and, whatever it
was, I knew it was well worth knowing. He had lived life, and seen
things, and performed that prodigy of prodigies, namely, the turning
of his back upon his own people, and, in so far as it was possible for
an Indian, becoming a white man even in his mental processes. As he
phrased it himself, he had come into the warm, sat among us, by our
fires, and become one of us. He had never learned to read nor write,
but his vocabulary was remarkable, and more remarkable still was the
completeness with which he had assumed the white man's point of view,
the white man's attitude toward things.
We had struck this deserted cabin after a hard day on trail. The dogs
had been fed, the supper dishes washed, the beds made, and we were
now enjoying that most delicious hour that comes each day, and but
once each day, on the Alaskan trail, the hour when nothing intervenes
between the tired body and bed save the smoking of the evening
pipe. Some former denizen of the cabin had decorated its walls with
illustrations torn from magazines and newspapers, and it was these
illustrations that had held Sitka Charley's attention from the moment
of our arrival two hours before. He had studied them intently, ranging
from one to another and back again, and I could see that there was
uncertainty in his mind, and bepuzzlement.
"Well?" I finally broke the silence.