me. I chew tobacco and tak' one big drink of Pain-killer. Yas, it hurt
wen he strike de marrow."

"Heavens! Didn't you faint with the awful pain?"

"What? Faint, me? No. I say, 'Get me my fire-bag, I want to have a
smok'.'"

CHAPTER X

PROVIDENCE TO SIMPSON, ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILES DOWN THE MACKENZIE

"Never the Spirit was born: the Spirit shall cease to be never.
Never was time, it was not; end and beginning are dreams.
Birthless and deathless and changeless remaineth the Spirit,
Death hath not touched it at all, though dead the house of it seems."

We have just finished supper and are sitting reading on the upper deck
about seven o'clock, when a cry comes from below, followed by the
rushing back and forth of moccasined feet. In a flash Bunny Langford,
one of the engineers, has grabbed a lifebuoy, runs past us to the stern,
and throws it well out toward a floating figure.

It is De-deed, De-deed who had smilingly helped us aboard at Resolution
just twenty-four hours before. Finishing his turn at stoking, he had
gone to draw a bucket of water, leaned over too far, and fallen,
carrying the hatch with him. At first we think nothing of the incident,
as he is a good swimmer and the current is with him. As soon as the
startled people realise what has happened the steamer's engines are
reversed and a boat is lowered. We call out to De-deed to swim to the
buoy, but he doesn't see it or doesn't understand. The black head gets
smaller in the distance; it disappears, and comes up again. Down it goes
for the second time. A strange, constricted feeling comes into our
throats as we cry out, "Swim, De-deed, the boat is coming! They are
almost up to you!" The boat, pulling hard against the current, seems but
a dozen yards away. Will he hold up? As we look, the head sinks, _and it
does not come up_. Within a few feet of buoy and boat, the body of
De-deed disappears for the last time. We search for an hour or more with
grappling irons, but he is never seen again. A strange silence settles
down above and below deck, and all night long two faces flit before
us--the grave face of the mother calling down blessings on her boy, the
rallying smile of De-deed bidding her good-by and telling her all is
well. It is a brave and happy spirit which, in the "Little Lake" of the
Mackenzie, goes out with the current.

The Mackenzie River, "La Grande Riviere en Bas," as the people of
Resolution call it, on whose waters we are n