e obeyed at once.

'Had discipline knocked into him somewhere.' Prince commented in a low
tone.

Malemute Kid nodded, took off his socks, and picked his way among
recumbent men to the stove. There he hung his damp footgear among a
score or so of mates.

'When do you expect to get to Dawson?' he asked tentatively.

The man studied him a moment before replying. 'They say seventy-five
mile. So? Maybe two days.' The very slightest accent was perceptible,
while there was no awkward hesitancy or groping for words.

'Been in the country before?' 'No.' 'Northwest Territory?' 'Yes.' 'Born
there?' 'No.'

'Well, where the devil were you born? You're none of these.' Malemute
Kid swept his hand over the dog drivers, even including the two
policemen who had turned into Prince's bunk. 'Where did you come from?
I've seen faces like yours before, though I can't remember just where.'
'I know you,' he irrelevantly replied, at once turning the drift of
Malemute Kid's questions.

'Where? Ever see me?' 'No; your partner, him priest, Pastilik, long
time ago. Him ask me if I see you, Malemute Kid. Him give me grub. I no
stop long. You hear him speak 'bout me?' 'Oh! you're the fellow that
traded the otter skins for the dogs?' The man nodded, knocked out his
pipe, and signified his disinclination for conversation by rolling up
in his furs. Malemute Kid blew out the slush lamp and crawled under the
blankets with Prince.

'Well, what is he?' 'Don't know--turned me off, somehow, and then shut
up like a clam.

'But he's a fellow to whet your curiosity. I've heard of him. All the
coast wondered about him eight years ago. Sort of mysterious, you know.
He came down out of the North in the dead of winter, many a thousand
miles from here, skirting Bering Sea and traveling as though the devil
were after him. No one ever learned where he came from, but he must
have come far. He was badly travel-worn when he got food from the
Swedish missionary on Golovin Bay and asked the way south. We heard of
all this afterward. Then he abandoned the shore line, heading right
across Norton Sound. Terrible weather, snowstorms and high winds, but
he pulled through where a thousand other men would have died, missing
St. Michaels and making the land at Pastilik. He'd lost all but two
dogs, and was nearly gone with starvation.

'He was so anxious to go on that Father Roubeau fitted him out with
grub; but he couldn't let him have any dogs, for he was only waiting