enry Ward Beecher
And Sunday-school teachers, All drink of the sassafras root; But you
bet all the same, If it had its right name, It's the juice of the
forbidden fruit.'

'Oh, the juice of the forbidden fruit,' roared out the bacchanalian
chorus, 'Oh, the juice of the forbidden fruit; But you bet all the
same, If it had its right name, It's the juice of the forbidden fruit.'

Malemute Kid's frightful concoction did its work; the men of the camps
and trails unbent in its genial glow, and jest and song and tales of
past adventure went round the board.

Aliens from a dozen lands, they toasted each and all. It was the
Englishman, Prince, who pledged 'Uncle Sam, the precocious infant of
the New World'; the Yankee, Bettles, who drank to 'The Queen, God bless
her'; and together, Savoy and Meyers, the German trader, clanged their
cups to Alsace and Lorraine.

Then Malemute Kid arose, cup in hand, and glanced at the greased-paper
window, where the frost stood full three inches thick. 'A health to the
man on trail this night; may his grub hold out; may his dogs keep their
legs; may his matches never miss fire.' Crack!

Crack! heard the familiar music of the dog whip, the whining howl of
the Malemutes, and the crunch of a sled as it drew up to the cabin.
Conversation languished while they waited the issue.

'An old-timer; cares for his dogs and then himself,' whispered Malemute
Kid to Prince as they listened to the snapping jaws and the wolfish
snarls and yelps of pain which proclaimed to their practiced ears that
the stranger was beating back their dogs while he fed his own.

Then came the expected knock, sharp and confident, and the stranger
entered.

Dazzled by the light, he hesitated a moment at the door, giving to all
a chance for scrutiny. He was a striking personage, and a most
picturesque one, in his Arctic dress of wool and fur. Standing six foot
two or three, with proportionate breadth of shoulders and depth of
chest, his smooth-shaven face nipped by the cold to a gleaming pink,
his long lashes and eyebrows white with ice, and the ear and neck flaps
of his great wolfskin cap loosely raised, he seemed, of a verity, the
Frost King, just stepped in out of the night.

Clasped outside his Mackinaw jacket, a beaded belt held two large
Colt's revolvers and a hunting knife, while he carried, in addition to
the inevitable dog whip, a smokeless rifle of the largest bore and
latest pattern. As he came forward, for all h