as with set teeth and straining sinews they herove together on the narrow ledge, with Ws precarious foothold, Okinakeine snarlchg like a beast as he fought. The slave's neet were bare, and this at length gave her fine advantage over her assailant, for he lilipped, and quick as lightning the girl Hushed him to his knees upon the very edge of their standing-place. Okinakeine clung to her legs and tried to pull her over with him, as with her hand upon his throat she forced him backward inch by inch. But in that hour, Elite possessed a superhuman strength; the black ichor of hatred and revenge distilled by years of servitude ran through her veins like a fire and made her discomfiture impossible. Back, still back she bent his head, until the vanquished dwarf let go his hold, and with an inarticulate cry, half of fear, half of rage, went over the polished lip of the cliff into the water.

Watching breathlessly, Elite saw him come up a few yards down the stream and strike out for the shore. Okinakeine, with his long arms, was a strong swimmer, but no human power could withstand the pull of that full current, sweeping on without hurry or turmoil, placid as a babe on its mother's breast, to the clean-cut brink, where it slid smoothly over in a. mighty emerald sheet, to lose itself in a rainbowed tumult at the bottom of the gorge, three hundred feet below. Still watching breathlessly, the girl saw her tormentor, despite his struggles, drawn outward toward the middle of the stream, and onward to the brink. Less than five minutes sufficed to tell the tale. The doomed man seemed to remain poised an instant on the verge, and then throwing up his arms with a despairing cry, lost to all human ears amidst the din of the waters, he disappeared over the brink,-and Elite was rid of her enemy.

The hop-pickers from the north returned to Seattle and camped on the beach a short distance from the town, and went to and fro in their canoes, trading and junketing for a while before returning to their far country. No one missed Okinakeine but his grandmother, and nobody paid much attention to her plaints. It was to be supposed that Okinakeine was

old enough to take care of himself, and would turn up when it suited his convenience.

The first evening they made camp on the beach, a big brown owl came and perched on a limb hard by T'semakeine's brushwood shelter and made night mournful with his too-whoos. The next evening he came again; and every evening. Then T'semakeine said it was her grandson, and that without doubt he was dead or bewitched. The old crone pined and fretted constantly over the loss of the one thing on earth she loved; and her grief, together with the fatigue and change from all her fixed habits involved in the protracted journey, brought her span of life

to its close.

At the end she summoned her clansmen around her, and with her last breath made her will and testament, the principal clause of which concerned itself with her slave.

"She is bad," said the old woman. "She bewitched Okinakeine, and turned him into a brown owl. She has bewitched me, and caused me to die. And now you shall bury her in my grave, lest she work evil on you all, and turn you into brown owls or blind moles. Besides, I need her to rub my old bones and take care of me. So you will bury her with me."

The Proud Slave heard her appalling doom pronounced without wincing. It is an unheard of breach of Indian etiquette to run away from a duly decreed lot, and Elite prepared her mistress for the last rites with the same haughty composure with which she had born her blows and affronts while living.

The sepulcher was dug full deep and wide in the gravelly beach, just above the line of high tide. In it were deposited the worldly possessions of the deceased, and upon the couch thus formed was carefully placed all that remained of T'semakeine. Beside the corpse of the shriveled hag they laid the splendid form of the slave, with her wide burning eyes gazing up at her executioners, and calmly proceeded to fill up the grave, beginning at the foot. It was at this precise moment that we happened upon the scene, and impelled by idle curiosity, stepped to the edge of the excavation and looked in.

HEN a man journeys into a far

W country, he must be prepared to

forget many of the things he has learned, and to acquire such customs as are inherent with existence in the new land; he must abandon the old ideals and the old gods, and oftentimes he must reverse the very codes by which his conduct has hitherto been shaped. To those who have the protean faculty of adaptability, the novelty of such change may even be a source of pleasure; but to those who happen to be hardened to the ruts in which they were created, the pressure of the altered environment is unbearable, and they chafe in body and in spirit under the new restrictions which they do not understand. This chafing is bound to act and react, producing divers evils and leading to various misfortunes. It were better for the man who cannot fit himself to the new groove, to return to his own country; if he delay too long, he will surely die.

is

The man who turns his back upon the comforts of an elder civilization, to face the savage youth, the primordial simplicity of the North, may estimate success at an inverse ratio to the quantity and quality of his hopelessly fixed habits. He will soon discover, if he be a fit candidate, that the material habits are the less important. The exchange of such things as a dainty menu for rough fare, of the stiff leather shoe for the soft, shapeless moccasin, of the feather bed for a couch in the snow, after all a very easy matter. But his pinch will come in learning properly to shape his mind's attitude toward all things, and especially toward his fellowman. For the courtesies of ordinary life, he must substitute unselfishness, forbearance, and tolerance. Thus, and thus only, can he gain that pearl of great price,-true comradeship. He must not say Thank you"; he must mean it without opening his mouth, and prove it by responding in kind. In short, he must substitute the deed for the word, the spirit for the letter.

When the world rang with the tale of

Arctic gold, and the lure of the North gripped the heartstrings of men, Carter Weatherbee threw up his snug clerkship, turned the half of his savings over to his wife, and with the remainder bought an oufit. There was no romance in his nature, the bondage of commerce had crushed all that; he was simply tired of the ceaseless grind, and wished to risk great hazards in view of corresponding returns. Like many another fool, disdaining the old trails used by the Northland pioneers for a score of years, he hurried to Edmonton in the spring of the year,and there, unluckily for his soul's welfare, he allied himself with a party of men.

Even

There was nothing unusual about this party, except its plans. Even its goal, like that of all other parties, was the Klondike. But the route it had mapped out to attain that goal, took away the breath of the hardiest native, born and bred to the vicissitudes of the Northwest. Jacques Baptiste, born of a Chippewa woman and a renegade voyageur, (having raised his first whimpers in a deerskin lodge north of the sixty-fifth parallel, and had the same hushed by blissful sucks of raw tallow,) was surprised. Though he sold his services to them and agreed to travel even to the never-opening ice, he shook his head ominously whenever his advice was asked.

Percy Cuthfert's evil star must have been in the ascendant, for he too joined this company of argonauts. He was an ordinary man, with a bank account as deep as his culture, which is saying a good deal. He had no reason to embark on such a venture, no reason in the world, save that he suffered from an abnormal development of sentimentality. He mistook this for the true spirit of romance and adventure. Many another man has done the like, and made as fatal a mistake.

The first break-up of spring found the party following the ice-run of Elk River. It was an imposing fleet, for the outfit was large and they were accompanied by a disreputable contingent of half-breed voy

ageurs with their women and children. Day in and day out, they labored with the batteaus and canoes, fought mosquitoes and other kindred pests, or sweated and swore at the portages. Severe toil like this lays a man naked to the very roots of his soul, and ere Lake Athabasca was lost in the south, each member of the party had hoisted his true colors.

The two shirks and chronic grumblers were Carter Weatherbee and Percy Cuthfert. The whole party complained less of its aches and pains than did either of them. Not once did they volunteer for the thousand and one petty duties of the camp. A bucket of water to be brought, an extra armful of wood to be chopped, the dishes to be washed and wiped, a search to be made through the outfit for some suddenly indispensable article, and these two effete scions of civilization discovered sprains or blisters requiring instant attention. They were the first to turn in at night, with a score of tasks yet undone; the last to turn out in the morning, when the start should be in readiness before the breakfast was begun. They were the first to fall to at meal-time, the last to have a hand in the cooking; the first to dive for a slim delicacy, the last to discover they had added to their own another man's share. If they toiled at the oars, they slyly cut the water at each stroke and allowed the boat's momentum to float up the blade. They thought nobody noticed; but their comrades swore under their breaths and grew to hate them, while Jacques Baptiste sneered openly and damned them from morning till night. But he was no gentle

man.

At the Great Slave, Hudson Bay dogs were purchased, and the fleet sank to the guards with its added burden of dried fish and pemmican. Then canoe and batteau. answered to the swift current of the Mackenzie, and they plunged into the Great Barren Ground. Every likely-looking "feeder" was prospected, but the elusive "pay-dirt" danced ever to the north. At the Great Bear, overcome by the common dread of the Unknown Lands, their voyageurs began to desert, and Fort of Good Hope saw the last and bravest bending to the tow-lines as they bucked the current down which they had so treacherously

glided. Jacques Baptiste alone remained. Had he not sworn to travel even to the never-opening ice?

The lying charts, compiled in main from hearsay, were now constantly consulted. And they felt the need of hurry, for the sun had already passed its northern solstice and was leading the winter south again. Skirting the shores of the bay, where the Mackenzie disembogues into the Arctic Ocean, they entered the mouth of the Little Peel River. Then began the arduous up-stream toil, and the two Incapables fared worse than ever. Tow-line and pole, paddle and tump-line, rapids and portages, such tortures served to give the one a deep disgust for great hazards, and printed for the other a fiery text on the true romance of adventure. One day they waxed mutinous, and being vilely cursed by Jacques Baptiste, turned, as worms sometimes will. But the halfbreed thrashed the twain, and sent them, bruised and bleeding, about their work. It was the first time either had been manhandled.

Abandoning their river craft at the head-waters of the Little Peel, they consumed the rest of the summer in the great portage over the Mackenzie watershed to the West Rat. This little stream fed the Porcupine, which in turn joined the Yukon where that mighty highway of the North countermarches on the Arctic Circle. But they had lost in the race with winter, and one day they tied their rafts. to the thick eddy-ice and hurried their goods ashore. That night the river jammed and broke several times; the following morning it had fallen asleep for good.

66

We can't be more 'n four hundred miles from the Yukon," concluded Sloper, multiplying his thumb nails by the scale of the map. The council, in which the two Incapables had whined to excellent disadvantage, was drawing to a close.

"Hudson Bay Post, long time ago. No use um now." Jacques Baptiste's father had made the trip for the Fur Company in the old days, incidentally marking the trail with a couple of frozen toes.

"Sufferin' cracky!" cried another of the party. "No whites?"

66

Nary white," Sloper sententiously affirmed; but it's only five hundred more up the Yukon to Dawson. Call it a rough thousand from here."

Weatherbee and Cuthfert groaned in chorus.

"How long 'll that take, Baptiste?"

The half-breed figured for a moment. 'Workum like hell, no man play out, ten-twenty-forty-fifty days. Um babies come," (designating the Incap(designating the Incapables,) "no can tell. Mebbe when hell freeze over; mebbe not then."

The manufacture of snow-shoes and moccasins ceased. Somebody called the name of an absent member, who came out of an ancient cabin at the edge of the camp-fire and joined them. The cabin was one of the many mysteries which lurk in the vast recesses of the North. Built when and by whom, no man could tell. Two graves in the open, piled high with stones, perhaps contained the secret of those early wanderers. But whose hand had piled the stones?

The moment had come. Jacques Baptiste paused in the fitting of a harness and pinned the struggling dog in the snow. The cook made mute protest for delay, threw a handful of bacon into a noisy pot of beans, then came to attention. Sloper rose to his feet. His body was a ludicrous contrast to the healthy physiques of the Incapables. Yellow and weak, fleeing from a South American fever-hole, he had not broken his flight across the zones, and was still able to toil with men. His weight was probably ninety pounds, with the heavy hunting-knife thrown in, and his grizzled hair told of a prime which had ceased to be. The fresh, young muscles of either Weatherbee or Cuthfert were equal to ten times the endeavor of his; yet he could walk them into the earth in a day's journey. And all this day he had whipped his stronger comrades into venturing a thousand miles of the stiffest hardship man can conceive. He was the incarnation of the unrest of his race, and the old Teutonic stubbornness, dashed with the quick grasp and action of the Yankee, held the flesh in the bondage of the spirit.

"All those in favor of going on with the dogs as soon as the ice sets, say aye."

"Aye!" rang out eight voices,-voices destined to string a trail of oaths along many a hundred miles of pain. "Contrary minded?"

"No!" For the first time the Incapables were united without some compromise of personal interests.

"And what are you going to do about it?" Weatherbee added belligerently.

"Majority rule! Majority rule!" clamored the rest of the party.

"I know the expedition is liable to fall through if you don't come," Sloper replied sweetly; "but I guess, if we try real hard, we can manage to do without you. What do you say, boys?

The sentiment was cheered to the echɔ. "But I say, you know," Cuthfert ventured apprehensively; "what's a chap like me to do?"

"Ain't you coming with us?"

"No-o."

"Then do as you d-n well please. We won't have nothing to say."

"Kind o' calkilate yuh might settle it with that canoodlin' pardner of yourn," suggested a heavy-going Westerner from the Dakotas, at the same time pointing out Weatherbee. "He'll be shore to ask yuh what yur a-goin' to do when it comes to cookin' an' gatherin' the wood."

"Then we'll consider it all arranged,” concluded Sloper. "We'll pull out tomorrow, if we camp within five miles,just to get everything in running order and remember if we've forgotten anything."