er
flour; good-by." You look and catch plenty soda. All the time you Fort
Yukon, me Arctic City. Hi-yu medicine man!' Ruth smiled so ingenuously
at the fairy story that both men burst into laughter. A row among the
dogs cut short the wonders of the Outside, and by the time the snarling
combatants were separated, she had lashed the sleds and all was ready
for the trail.--'Mush! Baldy! Hi! Mush on!' Mason worked his whip
smartly and, as the dogs whined low in the traces, broke out the sled
with the gee pole. Ruth followed with the second team, leaving Malemute
Kid, who had helped her start, to bring up the rear. Strong man, brute
that he was, capable of felling an ox at a blow, he could not bear to
beat the poor animals, but humored them as a dog driver rarely
does--nay, almost wept with them in their misery.

'Come, mush on there, you poor sore-footed brutes!' he murmured, after
several ineffectual attempts to start the load. But his patience was at
last rewarded, and though whimpering with pain, they hastened to join
their fellows.

No more conversation; the toil of the trail will not permit such
extravagance.

And of all deadening labors, that of the Northland trail is the worst.
Happy is the man who can weather a day's travel at the price of
silence, and that on a beaten track. And of all heartbreaking labors,
that of breaking trail is the worst. At every step the great webbed
shoe sinks till the snow is level with the knee. Then up, straight up,
the deviation of a fraction of an inch being a certain precursor of
disaster, the snowshoe must be lifted till the surface is cleared; then
forward, down, and the other foot is raised perpendicularly for the
matter of half a yard. He who tries this for the first time, if haply
he avoids bringing his shoes in dangerous propinquity and measures not
his length on the treacherous footing, will give up exhausted at the
end of a hundred yards; he who can keep out of the way of the dogs for
a whole day may well crawl into his sleeping bag with a clear
conscience and a pride which passeth all understanding; and he who
travels twenty sleeps on the Long Trail is a man whom the gods may envy.

The afternoon wore on, and with the awe, born of the White Silence, the
voiceless travelers bent to their work. Nature has many tricks
wherewith she convinces man of his finity--the ceaseless flow of the
tides, the fury of the storm, the shock of the earthquake, the long
roll of heaven's art