o be the exception. Why I was spared, I do not know. It
just so happened. At first I was vilely treated, beaten by the women
and children, clothed in vermin-infested mangy furs, and fed on refuse.
They were utterly heartless. How I managed to survive is beyond me;
but I know that often and often, at first, I meditated suicide. The
only thing that saved me during that period from taking my own life was
the fact that I quickly became too stupefied and bestial, what of my
suffering and degradation. Half-frozen, half-starved, undergoing
untold misery and hardship, beaten many and many a time into
insensibility, I became the sheerest animal.

"On looking back much of it seems a dream. There are gaps which my
memory cannot fill. I have vague recollections of being lashed to a
sled and dragged from camp to camp and tribe to tribe. Carted about
for exhibition purposes, I suppose, much as we do lions and elephants
and wild men. How far I so journeyed up and down that bleak region I
cannot guess, though it must have been several thousand miles. I do
know that when consciousness returned to me and I really became myself
again, I was fully a thousand miles to the west of the point where I
was captured.

"It was springtime, and from out of a forgotten past it seemed I
suddenly opened my eyes. A reindeer thong was about my waist and made
fast to the tail-end of a sled. This thong I clutched with both hands,
like an organ-grinder's monkey; for the flesh of my body was raw and in
great sores from where the thong had cut in.

"A low cunning came to me, and I made myself agreeable and servile.
That night I danced and sang, and did my best to amuse them, for I was
resolved to incur no more of the maltreatment which had plunged me into
darkness. Now the Deer Men traded with the Sea Men, and the Sea Men
with the whites, especially the whalers. So later I discovered a deck
of cards in the possession of one of the women, and I proceeded to
mystify the Chow Chuen with a few commonplace tricks. Likewise, with
fitting solemnity, I perpetrated upon them the little I knew of parlor
legerdemain. Result: I was appreciated at once, and was better fed and
better clothed.

"To make a long story short, I gradually became a man of importance.
First the old people and the women came to me for advice, and later the
chiefs. My slight but rough and ready knowledge of medicine and
surgery stood me in good stead, and I became indispensabl