reached camp about ten o'clock, and found a big fire and a big supper. A
party of Hoona Indians had visited Mr. Young, bringing a gift of
porpoise meat and wild strawberries, and Hunter Joe had brought in a
wild goat. But we lay down, too tired to eat much, and soon fell into a
troubled sleep. The man who said, "The harder the toil, the sweeter the
rest," never was profoundly tired. Stickeen kept springing up and
muttering in his sleep, no doubt dreaming that he was still on the brink
of the crevasse; and so did I, that night and many others long
afterward, when I was overtired.

Thereafter Stickeen was a changed dog. During the rest of the trip,
instead of holding aloof, he always lay by my side, tried to keep me
constantly in sight, and would hardly accept a morsel of food, however
tempting, from any hand but mine. At night, when all was quiet about the
camp-fire, he would come to me and rest his head on my knee with a look
of devotion as if I were his god. And often as he caught my eye he
seemed to be trying to say, "Wasn't that an awful time we had together
on the glacier?"

* * * * *

Nothing in after years has dimmed that Alaska storm-day. As I write it
all comes rushing and roaring to mind as if I were again in the heart of
it. Again I see the gray flying clouds with their rain-floods and snow,
the ice-cliffs towering above the shrinking forest, the majestic
ice-cascade, the vast glacier outspread before its white mountain
fountains, and in the heart of it the tremendous crevasse,--emblem of
the valley of the shadow of death,--low clouds trailing over it, the
snow falling into it; and on its brink I see little Stickeen, and I hear
his cries for help and his shouts of joy. I have known many dogs, and