I


On every hand stretched the forest primeval,--the home of noisy comedy
and silent tragedy. Here the struggle for survival continued to wage
with all its ancient brutality. Briton and Russian were still to overlap
in the Land of the Rainbow's End--and this was the very heart of it--nor
had Yankee gold yet purchased its vast domain. The wolf-pack still clung
to the flank of the cariboo-herd, singling out the weak and the big with
calf, and pulling them down as remorselessly as were it a thousand,
thousand generations into the past. The sparse aborigines still
acknowledged the rule of their chiefs and medicine men, drove out bad
spirits, burned their witches, fought their neighbors, and ate their
enemies with a relish which spoke well of their bellies. But it was at
the moment when the stone age was drawing to a close. Already, over
unknown trails and chartless wildernesses, were the harbingers of the
steel arriving,--fair-faced, blue-eyed, indomitable men, incarnations of
the unrest of their race. By accident or design, single-handed and in
twos and threes, they came from no one knew whither, and fought, or died,
or passed on, no one knew whence. The priests raged against them, the
chiefs called forth their fighting men, and stone clashed with steel; but
to little purpose. Like water seeping from some mighty reservoir, they
trickled through the dark forests and mountain passes, threading the
highways in bark canoes, or with their moccasined feet breaking trail for
the wolf-dogs. They came of a great breed, and their mothers were many;
but the fur-clad denizens of the Northland had this yet to learn. So
many an unsung wanderer fought his last and died under the cold fire of
the aurora, as did his brothers in burning sands and reeking jungles, and
as they shall continue to do till in the fulness of time the destiny of
their race be achieved.