take off the
mitten and put the hand between his legs next to the skin, so that the
thumb may get warm again.

"We limp into Circle City, and even I, Sitka Charley, am tired. It is
Christmas Eve. I dance, drink, make a good time, for to-morrow is
Christmas Day and we will rest. But no. It is five o'clock in the
morning--Christmas morning. I am two hours asleep. The man stand by my
bed. 'Come, Charley,' he says, 'harness the dogs. We start.'

"Have I not said that I ask questions no more? They pay me seven hundred
and fifty dollars each month. They are my masters. I am their man. If
they say, 'Charley, come, let us start for hell,' I will harness the
dogs, and snap the whip, and start for hell. So I harness the dogs, and
we start down the Yukon. Where do we go? They do not say. Only do they
say, 'On! on! We will go on!'

"They are very weary. They have travelled many hundreds of miles, and
they do not understand the way of the trail. Besides, their cough is
very bad--the dry cough that makes strong men swear and weak men cry. But
they go on. Every day they go on. Never do they rest the dogs. Always
do they buy new dogs. At every camp, at every post, at every Indian
village, do they cut out the tired dogs and put in fresh dogs. They have
much money, money without end, and like water they spend it. They are
crazy? Sometimes I think so, for there is a devil in them that drives
them on and on, always on. What is it that they try to find? It is not
gold. Never do they dig in the ground. I think a long time. Then I
think it is a man they try to find. But what man? Never do we see the
man. Yet are they like wolves on the trail of the kill. But they are
funny wolves, soft wolves, baby wolves who do not understand the way of
the trail. They cry aloud in their sleep at night. In their sleep they
moan and groan with the pain of their weariness. And in the day, as they
stagger along the trail, they cry under their breaths. They are funny
wolves.

"We pass Fort Yukon. We pass Fort Hamilton. We pass Minook. January
has come and nearly gone. The days are very short. At nine o'clock
comes daylight. At three o'clock comes night. And it is cold. And even
I, Sitka Charley, am tired. Will we go on forever this way without end?
I do not know. But always do I look along the trail for that which they
try to find. There are few people on the trail. Sometimes we travel one
hundred miles and