“Biggest man that ever turned his heels to Salt Water, or run a moose down with sheer grit,” supplemented Bettles; “but he’s the prove-the-rule exception.  Look at his woman, Unga,—­tip the scales at a hundred an’ ten, clean meat an’ nary ounce to spare.  She’d bank grit ’gainst his for all there was in him, an’ see him, an’ go him better if it was possible.  Nothing over the earth, or in it, or under it, she wouldn’t ‘a’ done.”

“But she loved him,” objected the engineer.

“’T ain’t that.  It—­”

“Look you, brothers,” broke in Sitka Charley from his seat on the grub-box.  “Ye have spoken of the streak of fat that runs in big men’s muscles, of the grit of women and the love, and ye have spoken fair; but I have in mind things which happened when the land was young and the fires of men apart as the stars.  It was then I had concern with a big man, and a streak of fat, and a woman.  And the woman was small; but her heart was greater than the beef-heart of the man, and she had grit.  And we traveled a weary trail, even to the Salt Water, and the cold was bitter, the snow deep, the hunger great.  And the woman’s love was a mighty love—­no more can man say than this.”

He paused, and with the hatchet broke pieces of ice from the large chunk beside him.  These he threw into the gold pan on the stove, where the drinking-water thawed.  The men drew up closer, and he of the cramps sought greater comfort vainly for his stiffened body.

“Brothers, my blood is red with Siwash, but my heart is white.  To the faults of my fathers I owe the one, to the virtues of my friends the other.  A great truth came to me when I was yet a boy.  I learned that to your kind and you was given the earth; that the Siwash could not withstand you, and like the caribou and the bear, must perish in the cold.  So I came into the warm and sat among you, by your fires, and behold, I became one of you, I have seen much in my time.  I have known strange things, and bucked big, on big trails, with men of many breeds.  And because of these things, I measure deeds after your manner, and judge men, and think thoughts.  Wherefore, when I speak harshly of one of your own kind, I know you will not take it amiss; and when I speak high of one of my father’s people, you will not take it upon you to say, ’Sitka Charley is Siwash, and there is a crooked light in his eyes and small honor to his tongue.’  Is it not so?”

Deep down in throat, the circle vouchsafed its assent.

“The woman was Passuk.  I got her in fair trade from her people, who were of the Coast and whose Chilcat totem stood at the head of a salt arm of the sea.  My heart did not go out to the woman, nor did I take stock of her looks.  For she scarce took her eyes from the ground, and she was timid and afraid, as girls will be when cast into a stranger’s arms whom they have never seen before.  As I say, there was no place in my heart for her to creep, for I had a great journey in mind, and stood in need of one to feed my dogs and to lift a paddle with me through the long river days.  One blanket would cover the twain; so I chose Passuk.