as pretty well
fixed in a financial way, and as he had no kin but me that he cared
about, he offered me an interest in his new steam whaler, if I would go
as chief engineer with her to the North Pacific.

The terms were liberal and the chance a good one, so it seemed, and
after a good many consultations, my wife agreed to let me go for _one_
cruise. She asked about the stops to be made in going around the Horn,
and figured mentally a little after each place was named--I believe now,
she half expected that I would desert the ship and walk home from one of
these spots, and was figuring on the time it would take me.

When the robins were building their nests, the new steam whaler,
"Champion," left New Bedford for parts unknown (_via_ the Horn), with
the sea-sickest chief engineer that ever smelt fish oil. The steam plant
wasn't very much--two boilers and a plain twenty-eight by thirty-six
double engine, and any amount of hoisting rigs, blubber boilers, and
other paraphernalia. We refitted in San Francisco, and on a clear summer
morning turned the white-painted figurehead of the "Champion" toward the
north and stood out for Behring sea. But, while we lay at the mouth of
the Yukon river, up in Alaska, getting ready for a sally into the realm
of water above the Straits, a whaler, bound for San Francisco and home,
dropped anchor near us, the homesickness struck in on me, and--never
mind the details now--your Uncle John came home without any whales, and
was mighty glad to get on the extra list of the old road.

The story I want to tell, however, is another man's story, and it was
while lying in the Yukon that I heard it. I was deeply impressed with it
at the time, and meant to give it to the world as soon as I got home,
for I set it all down plain then, but I lost my diary, and half forgot
the story--who wouldn't forget a story when he had to make two hundred
and ten miles a day on a locomotive and had five children at home? But
now, after twenty years, my wife turns up that old diary in the garret
this spring while house-cleaning. Fred had it and an old Fourth-of-July
cannon put away in an ancient valise, as a boy will treasure up useless
things.

Under the head of October 12th, I find this entry:

"At anchor in Yukon river, weather fair, recent heavy rains; set out
packing and filed main-rod brasses of both engines. Settled with Enoch
to go home on first ship bound south. Demented white man brought on
board by Indians, p