answered. "They are considered impassable."

"They ain't, though," he said, doggedly; "I've been behind 'em."

"Really!" I replied, tiring of his yarn.

"Ya-as, reely," he repeated, sullenly. Then he began to fumble and
search through the pages of his book until he found what he wanted.
"Mister," he said, "jest read that out loud, please."

The passage he indicated was the famous chapter beginning:

"Is the mammoth extinct? Is the dingue extinct? Probably. And
yet the aborigines of British America maintain the contrary.
Probably both the mammoth and the dingue are extinct; but
until expeditions have penetrated and explored not only the
unknown region in Alaska but also that hidden table-land
beyond the Graham Glacier and the Hudson Mountains, it will
not be possible to definitely announce the total extinction of
either the mammoth or the dingue."

When I had read it, slowly, for his benefit, he brought his hand down
smartly on one knee and nodded rapidly.

"Mister," he said, "that gent knows a thing or two, and don't you
forgit it!" Then he demanded, abruptly, how I knew he hadn't been
behind the Graham Glacier.

I explained.

"Shucks!" he said; "there's a road five miles wide inter that there
table-land. Mister, I ain't been in New York long; I come inter port a
week ago on the _Arctic Belle_, whaler. I was in the Hudson range when
that there Graham Glacier bust up--"

"What!" I exclaimed.

"Didn't you know it?" he asked. "Well, mebbe it ain't in the papers,
but it busted all right--blowed up by a earthquake an' volcano
combine. An', mister, it was oreful. My, how I did run!"

"Do you mean to tell me that some convulsion of the earth has
shattered the Graham Glacier?" I asked.

"Convulsions? Ya-as, an' fits, too," he said, sulkily. "The hull blame
thing dropped inter a hole. An' say, mister, home an' mother is good
enough fur me now."

I stared at him stupidly.

"Once," he said, "I ketched pelts fur them sharps at Hudson Bay, like
any yaller husky, but the things I seen arter that convulsion-fit--the
_things I seen behind the Hudson Mountings_--don't make me hanker
arter no life on the pe-rarie wild, lemme tell yer. I may be a Mother
Carey chicken, but this chicken has got enough."

After a long silence I picked up his book again and pointed at the
picture of the mammoth.

"What color is it?" I asked.

"Kinder red an' brown," he answered, promptly. "It's woolly, t