a-sniffing and sobbing till I worked in far enough to
shut him off. Thirty feet long he was, and twenty high, and a man could
sling a hammock between his tusks and sleep comfortably. Barring the
fact that I had run most of the juices out of him, he was fair eating,
and his four feet, alone, roasted whole, would have lasted a man a
twelvemonth. I spent the winter there myself."

"And where is this valley?" I asked

He waved his hand in the direction of the north-east, and said: "Your
tobacco is very good. I carry a fair share of it in my pouch, but I
shall carry the recollection of it until I die. In token of my
appreciation, and in return for the moccasins on your own feet, I will
present to you these _muclucs_. They commemorate Klooch and the seven
blind little beggars. They are also souvenirs of an unparalleled event
in history, namely, the destruction of the oldest breed of animal on
earth, and the youngest. And their chief virtue lies in that they will
never wear out."

Having effected the exchange, he knocked the ashes from his pipe, gripped
my hand good-night, and wandered off through the snow. Concerning this
tale, for which I have already disclaimed responsibility, I would
recommend those of little faith to make a visit to the Smithsonian
Institute. If they bring the requisite credentials and do not come in
vacation time, they will undoubtedly gain an audience with Professor
Dolvidson. The _muclucs_ are in his possession, and he will verify, not
the manner in which they were obtained, but the material of which they
are composed. When he states that they are made from the skin of the
mammoth, the scientific world accepts his verdict. What more would you
have?

A HYPERBOREAN BREW

[The story of a scheming white man among the strange people who live on
the rim of the Arctic sea]

Thomas Stevens's veracity may have been indeterminate as _x_, and his
imagination the imagination of ordinary men increased to the nth power,
but this, at least, must be said: never did he deliver himself of word
nor deed that could be branded as a lie outright. . . He may have played
with probability, and verged on the extremest edge of possibility, but in
his tales the machinery never creaked. That he knew the Northland like a
book, not a soul can deny. That he was a great traveller, and had set
foot on countless unknown trails, many evidences affirm. Outside of my
own personal knowledge, I knew men that ha