travel ten sleep, twenty sleep, forty sleep'--he graphically enumerated the days on his
fingers--'all the time water, bad water. Then you come to great village, plenty people, just
the same mosquitoes next summer. Wigwams oh, so high--ten, twenty pines.
Hi-yu skookum!' He paused impotently, cast an appealing glance at Malemute Kid, then
laboriously placed the twenty pines, end on end, by sign language. Malemute Kid smiled
with cheery cynicism; but Ruth's eyes were wide with wonder, and with pleasure; for she
half believed he was joking, and such condescension pleased her poor woman's heart.
'And then you step into a--a box, and pouf! up you go.' He tossed his empty cup in the air by
way of illustration and, as he deftly caught it, cried: 'And biff! down you come. Oh, great
medicine men! You go Fort Yukon. I go Arctic City--twenty-five sleep--big string, all the
time--I catch him string--I say, "Hello, Ruth! How are ye?"--and you say, "Is that my good
husband?"--and I say, "Yes"--and you say, "No can bake good bread, no more soda"--then I
say, "Look in cache, under flour; good-by." You look and catch plenty soda. All the time
you Fort Yukon, me Arctic City. Hi-yu medicine man!' Ruth smiled so ingenuously at the
fairy story that both men burst into laughter. A row among the dogs cut short the wonders
of the Outside, and by the time the snarling combatants were separated, she had lashed the
sleds and all was ready for the trail.-- 'Mush! Baldy! Hi! Mush on!' Mason worked his whip
smartly and, as the dogs whined low in the traces, broke out the sled with the gee pole. Ruth
followed with the second team, leaving Malemute Kid, who had helped her start, to bring
up the rear. Strong man, brute that he was, capable of felling an ox at a blow, he could not
bear to beat the poor animals, but humored them as a dog driver rarely does--nay, almost
wept with them in their misery.
'Come, mush on there, you poor sore-footed brutes!' he murmured, after several ineffectual
attempts to start the load. But his patience was at last rewarded, and though whimpering
with pain, they hastened to join their fellows.
No more conversation; the toil of the trail will not permit such extravagance.
And of all deadening labors, that of the Northland trail is the worst. Happy is the man who
can weather a day's travel at the price of silence, and that on a beaten track. And of all
heartbreaking labors, that of breaking trail is the worst. At every step the great webbed shoe
sinks till the snow is level with the knee. Then up, straight up, the deviation of a fraction of
an inch being a certain precursor of disaster, the snowshoe must be lifted till the surface is
cleared; then forward, down, and the other foot is raised perpendicularly for the matter of
half a yard. He who tries this for the first time, if haply he avoids bringing his shoes in
dangerous propinquity and measures not his length on the treacherous footing, will give up
exhausted at the end of a hundred yards; he who can keep out of the way of the dogs for a
whole day may well crawl into his sleeping bag with a clear conscience and a pride which
passeth all understanding; and he who travels twenty sleeps on the Long Trail is a man
whom the gods may envy.
The afternoon wore on, and with the awe, born of the White Silence, the voiceless travelers
bent to their work. Nature has many tricks wherewith she convinces man of his finity--the
ceaseless flow of the tides, the fury of the storm, the shock of the earthquake, the long roll
of heaven's artillery--but the most tremendous, the most stupefying of all, is the passive
phase of the White Silence. All movement ceases, the sky clears, the heavens are as brass;