'I go in your
canoe--how much?'

"I do not want anybody in my canoe. I do not like to say no. So I say,
'One thousand dollars.' Just for fun I say it, so woman cannot come with
me, much better than say no. She look at me very hard, then she says,
'When you start?' I say right away. Then she says all right, she will
give me one thousand dollars.

"What can I say? I do not want the woman, yet have I given my word that
for one thousand dollars she can come. I am surprised. Maybe she make
fun, too, so I say, 'Let me see thousand dollars.' And that woman, that
young woman, all alone on the trail, there in the snow, she take out one
thousand dollars, in greenbacks, and she put them in my hand. I look at
money, I look at her. What can I say? I say, 'No, my canoe very small.
There is no room for outfit.' She laugh. She says, 'I am great
traveller. This is my outfit.' She kick one small pack in the snow. It
is two fur robes, canvas outside, some woman's clothes inside. I pick it
up. Maybe thirty-five pounds. I am surprised. She take it away from
me. She says, 'Come, let us start.' She carries pack into canoe. What
can I say? I put my blankets into canoe. We start.

"And that is the way I saw the woman first time. The wind was fair. I
put up small sail. The canoe went very fast, it flew like a bird over
the high waves. The woman was much afraid. 'What for you come Klondike
much afraid?' I ask. She laugh at me, a hard laugh, but she is still
much afraid. Also is she very tired. I run canoe through rapids to Lake
Bennett. Water very bad, and woman cry out because she is afraid. We go
down Lake Bennett, snow, ice, wind like a gale, but woman is very tired
and go to sleep.

"That night we make camp at Windy Arm. Woman sit by fire and eat supper.
I look at her. She is pretty. She fix hair. There is much hair, and it
is brown, also sometimes it is like gold in the firelight, when she turn
her head, so, and flashes come from it like golden fire. The eyes are
large and brown, sometimes warm like a candle behind a curtain, sometimes
very hard and bright like broken ice when sun shines upon it. When she
smile--how can I say?--when she smile I know white man like to kiss her,
just like that, when she smile. She never do hard work. Her hands are
soft, like baby's hand. She is soft all over, like baby. She is not
thin, but round like baby; her arm, her leg, her muscles, all soft and
round li