t the
fire and began their meager meal. The dogs lay in their harnesses for
it was a midday halt, and watched each mouthful enviously.

'No more lunches after today,' said Malemute Kid. 'And we've got to
keep a close eye on the dogs--they're getting vicious. They'd just as
soon pull a fellow down as not, if they get a chance.' 'And I was
president of an Epworth once, and taught in the Sunday school.' Having
irrelevantly delivered himself of this, Mason fell into a dreamy
contemplation of his steaming moccasins, but was aroused by Ruth
filling his cup.

'Thank God, we've got slathers of tea! I've seen it growing, down in
Tennessee. What wouldn't I give for a hot corn pone just now! Never
mind, Ruth; you won't starve much longer, nor wear moccasins either.'
The woman threw off her gloom at this, and in her eyes welled up a
great love for her white lord--the first white man she had ever
seen--the first man whom she had known to treat a woman as something
better than a mere animal or beast of burden.

'Yes, Ruth,' continued her husband, having recourse to the macaronic
jargon in which it was alone possible for them to understand each
other; 'wait till we clean up and pull for the Outside. We'll take the
White Man's canoe and go to the Salt Water. Yes, bad water, rough
water--great mountains dance up and down all the time. And so big, so
far, so far away--you travel ten sleep, twenty sleep, forty sleep'--he
graphically enumerated the days on his fingers--'all the time water,
bad water. Then you come to great village, plenty people, just the same
mosquitoes next summer. Wigwams oh, so high--ten, twenty pines.

'Hi-yu skookum!' He paused impotently, cast an appealing glance at
Malemute Kid, then laboriously placed the twenty pines, end on end, by
sign language. Malemute Kid smiled with cheery cynicism; but Ruth's
eyes were wide with wonder, and with pleasure; for she half believed he
was joking, and such condescension pleased her poor woman's heart.

'And then you step into a--a box, and pouf! up you go.' He tossed his
empty cup in the air by way of illustration and, as he deftly caught
it, cried: 'And biff! down you come. Oh, great medicine men! You go
Fort Yukon. I go Arctic City--twenty-five sleep--big string, all the
time--I catch him string--I say, "Hello, Ruth! How are ye?"--and you
say, "Is that my good husband?"--and I say, "Yes"--and you say, "No can
bake good bread, no more soda"--then I say, "Look in cache, und