ookuk, 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 massacre. 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 MacManus, him all right?" asked Kurilla, politely cloaking his
cross-examination.

"MacManus?