ke baby. Her waist is small, and when she stand up, when she
walk, or move her head or arm, it is--I do not know the word--but it is
nice to look at, like--maybe I say she is built on lines like the lines
of a good canoe, just like that, and when she move she is like the
movement of the good canoe sliding through still water or leaping through
water when it is white and fast and angry. It is very good to see.

"Why does she come into Klondike, all alone, with plenty of money? I do
not know. Next day I ask her. She laugh and says: 'Sitka Charley, that
is none of your business. I give you one thousand dollars take me to
Dawson. That only is your business.' Next day after that I ask her what
is her name. She laugh, then she says, 'Mary Jones, that is my name.' I
do not know her name, but I know all the time that Mary Jones is not her
name.

"It is very cold in canoe, and because of cold sometimes she not feel
good. Sometimes she feel good and she sing. Her voice is like a silver
bell, and I feel good all over like when I go into church at Holy Cross
Mission, and when she sing I feel strong and paddle like hell. Then she
laugh and says, 'You think we get to Dawson before freeze-up, Charley?'
Sometimes she sit in canoe and is thinking far away, her eyes like that,
all empty. She does not see Sitka Charley, nor the ice, nor the snow.
She is far away. Very often she is like that, thinking far away.
Sometimes, when she is thinking far away, her face is not good to see. It
looks like a face that is angry, like the face of one man when he want to
kill another man.

"Last day to Dawson very bad. Shore-ice in all the eddies, mush-ice in
the stream. I cannot paddle. The canoe freeze to ice. I cannot get to
shore. There is much danger. All the time we go down Yukon in the ice.
That night there is much noise of ice. Then ice stop, canoe stop,
everything stop. 'Let us go to shore,' the woman says. I say no, better
wait. By and by, everything start down-stream again. There is much
snow. I cannot see. At eleven o'clock at night, everything stop. At
one o'clock everything start again. At three o'clock everything stop.
Canoe is smashed like eggshell, but is on top of ice and cannot sink. I
hear dogs howling. We wait. We sleep. By and by morning come. There
is no more snow. It is the freeze-up, and there is Dawson. Canoe smash
and stop right at Dawson. Sitka Charley has come in with two thousand
let