itten. The stranger-man shoots at him again, and this time the bullet
goes by in the air. Then the man takes the mitten in his teeth and pulls
it off. But his hand is frozen and he cannot hold the revolver, and it
fails in the snow. I look at the woman. Her mitten is off, and the big
Colt's revolver is in her hand. Three times she shoot, quick, just like
that. The hungry face of the stranger-man is still snarling as he falls
forward into the snow.

"They do not look at the dead man. 'Let us go on,' they say. And we go
on. But now that they have found that for which they look, they are like
dead. The last strength has gone out of them. They can stand no more
upon their feet. They will not crawl, but desire only to close their
eyes and sleep. I see not far away a place for camp. I kick them. I
have my dog-whip, and I give them the lash of it. They cry aloud, but
they must crawl. And they do crawl to the place for camp. I build fire
so that they will not freeze. Then I go back for sled. Also, I kill the
dogs of the stranger-man so that we may have food and not die. I put the
man and woman in blankets and they sleep. Sometimes I wake them and give
them little bit of food. They are not awake, but they take the food. The
woman sleep one day and a half. Then she wake up and go to sleep again.
The man sleep two days and wake up and go to sleep again. After that we
go down to the coast at St. Michaels. And when the ice goes out of
Bering Sea, the man and woman go away on a steamship. But first they pay
me my seven hundred and fifty dollars a month. Also, they make me a
present of one thousand dollars. And that was the year that Sitka
Charley gave much money to the Mission at Holy Cross."

"But why did they kill the man?" I asked.

Sitka Charley delayed reply until he had lighted his pipe. He glanced at
the _Police Gazette_ illustration and nodded his head at it familiarly.
Then he said, speaking slowly and ponderingly:

"I have thought much. I do not know. It is something that happened. It
is a picture I remember. It is like looking in at the window and seeing
the man writing a letter. They came into my life and they went out of my
life, and the picture is as I have said, without beginning, the end
without understanding."

"You have painted many pictures in the telling," I said.

"Ay," he nodded his head. "But they were without beginning and without
end."

"The last picture of all had