Deep down in throat, the circle vouchsafed its assent.

"The woman was Passuk. I got her in fair trade from her people, who were
of the Coast and whose Chilcat totem stood at the head of a salt arm of
the sea. My heart did not go out to the woman, nor did I take stock of
her looks. For she scarce took her eyes from the ground, and she was
timid and afraid, as girls will be when cast into a stranger's arms whom
they have never seen before. As I say, there was no place in my heart
for her to creep, for I had a great journey in mind, and stood in need of
one to feed my dogs and to lift a paddle with me through the long river
days. One blanket would cover the twain; so I chose Passuk.

"Have I not said I was a servant to the Government? If not, it is well
that ye know. So I was taken on a warship, sleds and dogs and evaporated
foods, and with me came Passuk. And we went north, to the winter ice-rim
of Bering Sea, where we were landed,--myself, and Passuk, and the dogs. I
was also given moneys of the Government, for I was its servant, and
charts of lands which the eyes of man had never dwelt upon, and messages.
These messages were sealed, and protected shrewdly from the weather, and
I was to deliver them to the whale-ships of the Arctic, ice-bound by the
great Mackenzie. Never was there so great a river, forgetting only our
own Yukon, the Mother of all Rivers.

"All of which is neither here nor there, for my story deals not with the
whale-ships, nor the berg-bound winter I spent by the Mackenzie.
Afterward, in the spring, when the days lengthened and there was a crust
to the snow, we came south, Passuk and I, to the Country of the Yukon. A
weary journey, but the sun pointed out the way of our feet. It was a
naked land then, as I have said, and we worked up the current, with pole
and paddle, till we came to Forty Mile. Good it was to see white faces