loudest in their contemptuous talk of the Indians. It is
such men who chop down the woodwork of cabins rather than be troubled to
take the axe into the forest a few rods away, who depart in the morning
without making kindling and shavings, careless how other travellers may
fare so themselves be warm without labour; who make "easy money" in the
summer-time by dropping down the Yukon with a boat-load of "rot-gut"
whisky, leaving drunkenness and riot at every village they pass; who
beget children of the native women and regard them no more than a dog
does his pups, indifferent that their own flesh and blood go cold and
hungry. They are the curse and disgrace of Alaska, and they often go
long time insolent and unwhipped because our poor lame law is not nimble
enough to overtake them; "to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness
for ever," one's indignation is sometimes disposed to thunder savagely
with Saint Jude; and indeed there needs a future punishment to redress
the balance in this country.

[Sidenote: FIDO]

At break of day our reinforced company was off, Arthur and "One-Eyed
William" going ahead to sound the ice and pick the way, the dog "Fido"
(such a name for a Siwash dog!) and myself in the traces, the doctor at
the handle-bars. The rest had benefited the doctor's knee, but walking
was still painful and he needed the support of the handle-bars all day.
What a great difference that one strong, willing little dog made! His
steady pulling kept the sled in motion and relieved one's shoulders of
the galling jerk of the rope at every step. The going was "not too bad,"
as they say here, all day, though it carried one rather severe
disappointment. William had told us of a portage he thought we could
take that would cut off eight or nine miles of the river; but when we
reached it the snow upon it proved insufficient to afford a passage, for
it was a rough niggerhead flat, and we had to swing around the outer
edges of the great curves the river makes, where alone was ice, with
trouble and danger at every crossing.

The decision as to whether we should halt or go forward, as to whether
ice was safe or unsafe, as to whether we should cross the river or stay
where we were--every decision that concerned the secure advance of the
party--I put wholly upon William, and would not permit myself or any
other to question his judgment or to argue it with him. There was no
sense in half-measures; this young man knew the river as non