ghted in the winter, in the snow and the cold; rejoiced to be on the
trail, rejoiced to work. When we made ready to depart after a few days
at a mission or in a town, Nanook was beside himself with joy. He would
burst forth into song as he saw the preparations in hand, would run all
up and down the gamut of his singular flexible voice, would tell as
plainly to all around as though he spoke it in English and Indian and
Esquimau that the inaction had irked him, that he was eager to be gone
again.

Well, he was dead; as fine a dog as ever lived; as faithful and
intelligent a creature as any man ever had, not of human race, for
servant, companion, and friend. And I thought the more of myself that he
had put his tongue to my cheek when I said good-bye to him.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: THE AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHER]

Here on the Tanana was one of the most interesting original characters
of the many in the land: an old inhabitant of Alaska and of the
Northwest who had followed many avocations and was now settled down on
the river bank, with a steamboat wood-yard, a road-house for the
entertainment of occasional travellers, and a little stock of trade
goods chiefly for Indians of the vicinity. A round, fat, pursy man he
was, past the middle life, with a twinkling eye and a bristling
moustache, and a most amazing knack of picking up new words and using
them incorrectly. He had fallen out with the great trading company of
Alaska and did almost all his purchasing from a "mail-order house" in
Chicago, the enormous quarto catalogue on the flimsiest thin paper
issued by that establishment being his chief book of reference and his
choice continual reading. He would declaim by the hour on the iniquitous
prices that prevail in the interior and had the quotations of prices of
every conceivable merchandise from his _vade mecum_ at his fingers'
ends.

But his chief passion of the past two or three years was photography, in
the which he had made but little progress, despite considerable
expenditures; and he had come to the conclusion about the time of our
visit that what he needed was a fine lens, although, as a matter of
fact, he had never learned to use his cheap one. He had recently become
acquainted with sensitive film and had ordered a supply. By a
transposition of letters, which the nature of the substance doubtless
confirmed in his mind when it arrived, he always spoke of these
convenient strips of cellul