ute Kid smiled benignantly through the clouds of steam. 'By
the time you've been in this country as long as I have, my son, and
lived on rabbit tracks and salmon belly, you'll learn that Christmas
comes only once per annum.

And a Christmas without punch is sinking a hole to bedrock with nary a
pay streak.'

'Stack up on that fer a high cyard,' approved Big Jim Belden, who had
come down from his claim on Mazy May to spend Christmas, and who, as
everyone knew, had been living the two months past on straight moose
meat. 'Hain't fergot the hooch we-uns made on the Tanana, hey yeh?'
'Well, I guess yes. Boys, it would have done your hearts good to see
that whole tribe fighting drunk--and all because of a glorious ferment
of sugar and sour dough. That was before your time,' Malemute Kid said
as he turned to Stanley Prince, a young mining expert who had been in
two years. 'No white women in the country then, and Mason wanted to get
married. Ruth's father was chief of the Tananas, and objected, like the
rest of the tribe. Stiff? Why, I used my last pound of sugar; finest
work in that line I ever did in my life. You should have seen the
chase, down the river and across the portage.' 'But the squaw?' asked
Louis Savoy, the tall French Canadian, becoming interested; for he had
heard of this wild deed when at Forty Mile the preceding winter.

Then Malemute Kid, who was a born raconteur, told the unvarnished tale
of the Northland Lochinvar. More than one rough adventurer of the North
felt his heartstrings draw closer and experienced vague yearnings for
the sunnier pastures of the Southland, where life promised something
more than a barren struggle with cold and death.

'We struck the Yukon just behind the first ice run,' he concluded, 'and
the tribe only a quarter of an hour behind. But that saved us; for the
second run broke the jam above and shut them out. When they finally got
into Nuklukyeto, the whole post was ready for them.

'And as to the forgathering, ask Father Roubeau here: he performed the
ceremony.' The Jesuit took the pipe from his lips but could only
express his gratification with patriarchal smiles, while Protestant and
Catholic vigorously applauded.

'By gar!' ejaculated Louis Savoy, who seemed overcome by the romance of
it. 'La petite squaw: mon Mason brav. By gar!' Then, as the first tin
cups of punch went round, Bettles the Unquenchable sprang to his feet
and struck up his favorite drinking song: 'There's H