The Magnetic North Part 79

"That so?"

"No; he will go 'on his own' after the new agent gets in this spring."

"It is true," answered Unookuk gravely, for the first time a little impressed, for this news was not yet common property. Still, they could have heard it from some pa.s.ser with a dog-team. The Boy spoke of Holy Cross, and Unookuk's grave unbelief was painted on every feature.

"It was good you get to Holy Cross before the big storm," he said, with a faint smile of tolerance for the white man's tall story. But Peetka laughed aloud.

"What good English you speak!" said the Boy, determined to make friends with the most intelligent-appearing native he had seen.

"Me; I am Kurilla!" said Unookuk, with a quiet magnificence. Then, seeing no electric recognition of the name, he added: "You savvy Kurilla!"

The Colonel with much regret admitted that he did not.

"But I am Dall's guide--Kurilla."

"Oh, Dall's guide, are you," said the Boy, without a glimmer of who Dall was, or for what, or to what, he was "guided." "Well, Kurilla, we're pleased and proud to meet you," adding with some presence of mind, "And how's Dall?"

"It is long I have not hear. We both old now. I hurt my knee on the ice when I come down from Nulato for caribou."

"Why do you have two names?"

"Unookuk, Nulato name. My father big Nulato Shaman. Him killed, mother killed, everybody killed in Koyukuk ma.s.sacre. They forget kill me. Me kid. Russians find Unookuk in big wood. Russians give food. I stay with Russians--them call Unookuk 'Kurilla.' Dall call Unookuk 'Kurilla.'"

"Dall--Dall," said the Colonel to the Boy; "was that the name of the explorer fella--"

Fortunately the Boy was saved from need to answer.

"First white man go down Yukon to the sea," said Kurilla with pride.

"Me Dall's guide."

"Oh, wrote a book, didn't he? Name's familiar somehow," said the Colonel.

Kurilla bore him out.

"Mr. Dall great man. Thirty year he first come up here with Survey people. Make big overland tel-ee-grab."

"Of course. I've heard about that." The Colonel turned to the Boy. "It was just before the Russians sold out. And when a lot of exploring and surveying and pole-planting was done here and in Siberia, the Atlantic cable was laid and knocked the overland scheme sky-high."

Kurilla gravely verified these facts.

"And me, Dall's chief guide. Me with Dall when he make portage from Unalaklik to Kaltag. He see the Yukon first time. He run down to be first on the ice. Dall and the coast natives stare, like so"--Kurilla made a wild-eyed, ludicrous face--"and they say: 'It is not a river--it is another sea!'"

"No wonder. I hear it's ten miles wide up by the flats, and even a little below where we wintered, at Ikogimeut, it's four miles across from bank to bank."

Kurilla looked at the Colonel with dignified reproach. Why did he go on lying about his journey like that to an expert?

"Even at Holy Cross--" the Boy began, but Kurilla struck in:

"When you there?"

"Oh, about three weeks ago."

Peetka made remarks in Ingalik.

"Father MacMa.n.u.s, him all right?" asked Kurilla, politely cloaking his cross-examination.

"MacMa.n.u.s? Do you mean Wills, or the Superior, Father Brachet?"

"Oh yes! MacMa.n.u.s at Tanana." He spoke as though inadvertently he had confused the names. As the strangers gave him the winter's news from Holy Cross, his wonder and astonishment grew.

Presently, "Do you know my friend Nicholas of Pymeut?" asked the Boy.

Kurilla took his empty pipe out of his mouth and smiled in broad surprise. "Nicholas!" repeated several others. It was plain the Pymeut pilot enjoyed a wide repute.

The Boy spoke of the famine and Ol' Chief's illness.

"It is true," said Unookuk gravely, and turning, he added something in Ingalik to the company. Peetka answered back as surly as ever. But the Boy went on, telling how the Shaman had cured Ol' Chief, and that turned out to be a surprisingly popular story. Peetka wouldn't interrupt it, even to curse the Leader for getting up and stretching himself. When the dog--feeling that for some reason discipline was relaxed--dared to leave his cramped quarters, and come out into the little open s.p.a.ce between the white men and the close-packed a.s.sembly, the Boy forced himself to go straight on with his story as if he had not observed the liberty the Leader was taking. When, after standing there an instant, the dog came over and threw himself down at the stranger's feet as if publicly adopting him, the white story-teller dared not meet Peetka's eye. He was privately most uneasy at the n.i.g.g.e.r dog's tactless move, and he hurried on about how Brother Paul caught the Shaman, and about the Penitential Journey--told how, long before that, early in the Fall, Nicholas had got lost, making the portage from St. Michael's, and how the white camp had saved him from starvation; how in turn the Pymeuts had pulled the speaker out of a blow-hole; what tremendous friends the Pymeuts were with these particular, very good sort of white men. Here he seemed to allow by implication for Peetka's prejudice--there were two kinds of pale-face strangers--and on an impulse he drew out Muckluck's medal. He would have them to know, so highly were these present specimens of the doubtful race regarded by the Pymeuts--such friends were they, that Nicholas' sister had given him this for an offering to Yukon Inua, that the Great Spirit might help them on their way. He owned himself wrong to have delayed this sacrifice. He must to-morrow throw it into the first blow-hole he came to--unless indeed... his eye caught Kurilla's. With the help of his stick the old Guide pulled his big body up on his one stout leg, hobbled nearer and gravely eyed Muckluck's offering as it swung to and fro on its walrus-string over the Leader's head. The Boy, quite conscious of some subtle change in the hitherto immobile face of the Indian, laid the token in his hand. Standing there in the centre of the semicircle between the a.s.sembly and the dog, Kurilla turned the Great Katharine's medal over, examining it closely, every eye in the room upon him.

When he lifted his head there was a rustle of expectation and a craning forward.

"It is the same." Kurilla spoke slowly like one half in a dream. "When I go down river, thirty winter back, with the Great Dall, he try buy this off Nicholas's mother. She wear it on string red Russian beads.

Oh, it is a thing to remember!" He nodded his grey head significantly, but he went on with the bare evidence: "When _John J. Healy_ make last trip down this fall--Nicholas pilot you savvy--they let him take his sister, Holy Cross to Pymeut. I see she wear this round neck."

The weight of the medal carried the raw-hide necklace slipping through his fingers. Slowly now, with even impulse, the silver disc swung right, swung left, like the pendulum of a clock. Even the n.i.g.g.e.r dog seemed hypnotised, following the dim shine of the tarnished token.

"I say Nicholas's sister: 'It is thirty winters I see that silver picture first; I give you two dolla for him.' She say 'No.' I say, 'Gi'

fi' dolla.' 'No.' I sit and think far back--thirty winters back. 'I gi'

ten dolla,' I say. She say, 'I no sell; no--not for a hunner'--but she _give_ it him! for to make Yukon Inua to let him go safe. Hein? Savvy?"

And lapsing into Ingalik, he endorsed this credential not to be denied.

"It is true," he wound up in English. The "Autocratrix Russorum" was solemnly handed back. "You have make a brave journey. It is I who unnerstan'--I, too, when I am young, I go with Dall on the Long Trail.

_We had dogs._" All the while, from all about the Leader's owner, and out of every corner of the crowded room, had come a spirited punctuation of Kurilla's speech--nods and grunts. "Yes, perhaps _these_ white men deserved dogs--even Peetka's!"

Kurilla limped back to his place, but turned to the Ingaliks before he sat down, and bending painfully over his stick, "Not Kurilla," he said, as though speaking of one absent--"not _Dall_ make so great journey, no dogs. Kurilla? Best guide in Yukon forty year. Kurilla say: 'Must have dogs--men like that!'" He limped back again and solemnly offered his hand to each of the travellers in turn. "Shake!" says he. Then, as though fascinated by the silver picture, he dropped down by the Boy, staring absently at the Great Katharine's effigy. The general murmur was arrested by a movement from Peetka--he took his pipe out of his mouth and says he, handsomely:

"No liars. Sell dog," adding, with regretful eye on the apostate Leader, "Him bully dog!"

And that was how the tobacco famine ended, and how the white men got their team.

CHAPTER XV

THE ESQUIMAUX HORSE

"Plus je connais les hommes, plus j'aime les chiens."