The Colonel with much regret admitted that he did not.

“But I am Dall’s guide—­Kurilla.”

“Oh, Dall’s guide, are you,” said the Boy, without a glimmer of who Dall was, or for what, or to what, he was “guided.”  “Well, Kurilla, we’re pleased and proud to meet you,” adding with some presence of mind, “And how’s Dall?”

“It is long I have not hear.  We both old now.  I hurt my knee on the ice when I come down from Nulato for caribou.”

“Why do you have two names?”

“Unookuk, Nulato name.  My father big Nulato Shaman.  Him killed, mother killed, everybody killed in Koyukuk massacre.  They forget kill me.  Me kid.  Russians find Unookuk in big wood.  Russians give food.  I stay with Russians—­them call Unookuk ‘Kurilla.’  Dall call Unookuk ‘Kurilla.’”

“Dall—­Dall,” said the Colonel to the Boy; “was that the name of the explorer fella—­”

Fortunately the Boy was saved from need to answer.

“First white man go down Yukon to the sea,” said Kurilla with pride.  “Me Dall’s guide.”

“Oh, wrote a book, didn’t he?  Name’s familiar somehow,” said the Colonel.

Kurilla bore him out.

“Mr. Dall great man.  Thirty year he first come up here with Survey people.  Make big overland tel-ee-grab.”

“Of course.  I’ve heard about that.”  The Colonel turned to the Boy.  “It was just before the Russians sold out.  And when a lot of exploring and surveying and pole-planting was done here and in Siberia, the Atlantic cable was laid and knocked the overland scheme sky-high.”

Kurilla gravely verified these facts.

“And me, Dall’s chief guide.  Me with Dall when he make portage from Unalaklik to Kaltag.  He see the Yukon first time.  He run down to be first on the ice.  Dall and the coast natives stare, like so”—­Kurilla made a wild-eyed, ludicrous face—­“and they say:  ’It is not a river—­it is another sea!’”

“No wonder.  I hear it’s ten miles wide up by the flats, and even a little below where we wintered, at Ikogimeut, it’s four miles across from bank to bank.”

Kurilla looked at the Colonel with dignified reproach.  Why did he go on lying about his journey like that to an expert?

“Even at Holy Cross—­” the Boy began, but Kurilla struck in: 

“When you there?”

“Oh, about three weeks ago.”

Peetka made remarks in Ingalik.

“Father MacManus, him all right?” asked Kurilla, politely cloaking his cross-examination.

“MacManus?  Do you mean Wills, or the Superior, Father Brachet?”

“Oh yes!  MacManus at Tanana.”  He spoke as though inadvertently he had confused the names.  As the strangers gave him the winter’s news from Holy Cross, his wonder and astonishment grew.

Presently, “Do you know my friend Nicholas of Pymeut?” asked the Boy.

Kurilla took his empty pipe out of his mouth and smiled in broad surprise.  “Nicholas!” repeated several others.  It was plain the Pymeut pilot enjoyed a wide repute.