’They had dropped out of the world, being now poor, and so I wandered from camp to camp, even north to the Kootenay country, where I picked up the cold scent.  They had come and gone, some said this way, and some that, and still others that they had gone to the country of the Yukon.  And I went this way, and I went that, ever journeying from place to place, till it seemed I must grow weary of the world which was so large.  But in the Kootenay I traveled a bad trail, and a long trail, with a breed of the Northwest, who saw fit to die when the famine pinched.  He had been to the Yukon by an unknown way over the mountains, and when he knew his time was near gave me the map and the secret of a place where he swore by his gods there was much gold.

’After that all the world began to flock into the north.  I was a poor man; I sold myself to be a driver of dogs.  The rest you know.  I met him and her in Dawson.

’She did not know me, for I was only a stripling, and her life had been large, so she had no time to remember the one who had paid for her an untold price.

’So?  You bought me from my term of service.  I went back to bring things about in my own way, for I had waited long, and now that I had my hand upon him was in no hurry.

’As I say, I had it in mind to do my own way, for I read back in my life, through all I had seen and suffered, and remembered the cold and hunger of the endless forest by the Russian seas.  As you know, I led him into the east—­him and Unga—­into the east where many have gone and few returned.  I led them to the spot where the bones and the curses of men lie with the gold which they may not have.

’The way was long and the trail unpacked.  Our dogs were many and ate much; nor could our sleds carry till the break of spring.  We must come back before the river ran free.  So here and there we cached grub, that our sleds might be lightened and there be no chance of famine on the back trip.  At the McQuestion there were three men, and near them we built a cache, as also did we at the Mayo, where was a hunting camp of a dozen Pellys which had crossed the divide from the south.

’After that, as we went on into the east, we saw no men; only the sleeping river, the moveless forest, and the White Silence of the North.  As I say, the way was long and the trail unpacked.  Sometimes, in a day’s toil, we made no more than eight miles, or ten, and at night we slept like dead men.  And never once did they dream that I was Naass, head man of Akatan, the righter of wrongs.

’We now made smaller caches, and in the nighttime it was a small matter to go back on the trail we had broken and change them in such way that one might deem the wolverines the thieves.  Again there be places where there is a fall to the river, and the water is unruly, and the ice makes above and is eaten away beneath.

’In such a spot the sled I drove broke through, and the dogs; and to him and Unga it was ill luck, but no more.  And there was much grub on that sled, and the dogs the strongest.