s that lie between the east coast of Siberia and
farthermost Labrador. That he is there, somewhere, within that clearly
defined territory, I pledge the word of an honourable man whose
expectations entail straight speaking and right living.

Thomas Stevens may have toyed prodigiously with truth, but when we first
met (it were well to mark this point), he wandered into my camp when I
thought myself a thousand miles beyond the outermost post of
civilization. At the sight of his human face, the first in weary months,
I could have sprung forward and folded him in my arms (and I am not by
any means a demonstrative man); but to him his visit seemed the most
casual thing under the sun. He just strolled into the light of my camp,
passed the time of day after the custom of men on beaten trails, threw my
snowshoes the one way and a couple of dogs the other, and so made room
for himself by the fire. Said he'd just dropped in to borrow a pinch of
soda and to see if I had any decent tobacco. He plucked forth an ancient
pipe, loaded it with painstaking care, and, without as much as by your
leave, whacked half the tobacco of my pouch into his. Yes, the stuff was
fairly good. He sighed with the contentment of the just, and literally
absorbed the smoke from the crisping yellow flakes, and it did my
smoker's heart good to behold him.

Hunter? Trapper? Prospector? He shrugged his shoulders No; just sort
of knocking round a bit. Had come up from the Great Slave some time
since, and was thinking of trapsing over into the Yukon country. The
factor of Koshim had spoken about the discoveries on the Klondike, and he
was of a mind to run over for a peep. I noticed that he spoke of the
Klondike in the archaic vernacular, calling it the Reindeer River--a
conceited custom that the Old Timers employ against the _che-chaquas_
and all tenderfeet in general. But he did it so naively and as such a
matter of course, that there was no sting, and I forgave him. He also
had it in view, he said, before he crossed the divide into the Yukon, to
make a little run up Fort o' Good Hope way.

Now Fort o' Good Hope is a far journey to the north, over and beyond the
Circle, in a place where the feet of few men have trod; and when a
nondescript ragamuffin comes in out of the night, from nowhere in
particular, to sit by one's fire and discourse on such in terms of
"trapsing" and "a little run," it is fair time to rouse up and shake off
the dream. Wher