Having been honest to myself, and to whatever prospective olive branches
my wife may be pleased to tender me, I can now afford to be generous. I
shall not criticize the tales told me by Thomas Stevens, and, further, I
shall withhold my judgment. If it be asked why, I can only add that
judgment I have none. Long have I pondered, weighed, and balanced, but
never have my conclusions been twice the same--forsooth! because Thomas
Stevens is a greater man than I. If he have told truths, well and good;
if untruths, still well and good. For who can prove? or who disprove? I
eliminate myself from the proposition, while those of little faith may do
as I have done--go find the same Thomas Stevens, and discuss to his face
the various matters which, if fortune serve, I shall relate. As to where
he may be found? The directions are simple: anywhere between 53 north
latitude and the Pole, on the one hand; and, on the other, the likeliest
hunting grounds 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