There have been renunciations
and renunciations. But, in its
essence, renunciation is ever
the same. And the paradox of
it is, that men and women forego
the dearest thing in the world
for something dearer. It was
never otherwise. Thus it was
when Abel brought of the firstlings
of his flock and of the fat thereof.
The firstlings and the fat thereof
were to him the dearest things
in the world; yet he gave them
over that he might be on good
terms with God. So it was with
Abraham when he prepared to offer
up his son Isaac on a stone.
Isaac was very dear to him; but
God, in incomprehensible ways,
was yet dearer. It may be that
Abraham feared the Lord. But
whether that be true or not it
has since been determined by
a few billion people that he
loved the Lord and desired to
serve him.
And since it has been determined
that love is service, and since
to renounce is to serve, then
Jees Uck, who was merely a woman
of a swart-skinned breed, loved
with a great love. She was unversed
in history, having learned to
read only the signs of weather
and of game; so she had never
heard of Abel nor of Abraham;
nor, having escaped the good
sisters at Holy Cross, had she
been told the story of Ruth,
the Moabitess, who renounced
her very God for the sake of
a stranger woman from a strange
land. Jees Uck had learned only
one way of renouncing, and that
was with a club as the dynamic
factor, in much the same manner
as a dog is made to renounce
a stolen marrow-bone. Yet, when
the time came, she proved herself
capable of rising to the height
of the fair-faced royal races
and of renouncing in right regal
fashion.
So this is the story of Jees
Uck, which is also the story
of Neil Bonner, and Kitty Bonner,
and a couple of Neil Bonner's
progeny. Jees Uck was of a swart-skinned
breed, it is true, but she was
not an Indian; nor was she an
Eskimo; nor even an Innuit. Going
backward into mouth tradition,
there appears the figure of one
Skolkz, a Toyaat Indian of the
Yukon, who journeyed down in
his youth to the Great Delta
where dwell the Innuits, and
where he foregathered with a
woman remembered as Olillie.
Now the woman Olillie had been
bred from an Eskimo mother by
an Innuit man. And from Skolkz
and Olillie came Halie, who was
one-half Toyaat Indian, one-quarter
Innuit, and one-quarter Eskimo.
And Halie was the grandmother
of Jees Uck.
Now Halie, in whom three stocks
had been bastardized, who cherished
no prejudice against further
admixture, mated with a Russian
fur trader called Shpack, also
known in his time as the Big
Fat. Shpack is herein classed
Russian for lack of a more adequate
term; for Shpack's father, a
Slavonic convict from the Lower
Provinces, had escaped from the
quicksilver mines into Northern
Siberia, where he knew Zimba,
who was a woman of the Deer People
and who became the mother of
Shpack, who became the grandfather
of Jees Uck.
Now had not Shpack been captured
in his boyhood by the Sea People,
who fringe the rim of the Arctic
Sea with their misery, he would
not have become the grandfather
of Jees Uck and there would be
no story at all. But he WAS captured
by the Sea People, from whom
he escaped to Kamchatka, and
thence, on a Norwegian whale-ship,
to the Baltic. Not long after
that he turned up in St. Petersburg,
and the years were not many till
he went drifting east over the
same weary road his father had
measured with blood and groans
a half- century before. But Shpack
was a free man, in the employ
of the great Russian Fur Company.
And in that employ he fared farther
and farther east, until he crossed
Bering Sea into Russian America;
and at Pastolik, which is hard
by the Great Delta of the Yukon,
became the husband of Halie,
who was the grandmother of Jees
Uck. Out of this union came the
woman-child, Tukesan.
Shpack, under the orders of
the Company, made a canoe voyage
of a few hundred miles up the
Yukon to the post of Nulato.
With him he took Halie and the
babe Tukesan. This was in 1850,
and in 1850 it was that the river
Indians fell upon Nulato and
wiped it from the face of the
earth. And that was the end of
Shpack and Halie. On that terrible
night Tukesan disappeared. To
this day the Toyaats aver they
had no hand in the trouble; but,
be that as it may, the fact remains
that the babe Tukesan grew up
among them.
Tukesan was married successively
to two Toyaat brothers, to both
of whom she was barren. Because
of this, other women shook their
heads, and no third Toyaat man
could be found to dare matrimony
with the childless widow. But
at this time, many hundred miles
above, at Fort Yukon, was a man,
Spike O'Brien. Fort Yukon was
a Hudson Bay Company post, and
Spike O'Brien one of the Company's
servants. He was a good servant,
but he achieved an opinion that
the service was bad, and in the
course of time vindicated that
opinion by deserting. It was
a year's journey, by the chain
of posts, back to York Factory
on Hudson's Bay. Further, being
Company posts, he knew he could
not evade the Company's clutches.
Nothing retained but to go down
the Yukon. It was true no white
man had ever gone down the Yukon,
and no white man knew whether
the Yukon emptied into the Arctic
Ocean or Bering Sea; but Spike
O'Brien was a Celt, and the promise
of danger was a lure he had ever
followed.
A few weeks later, somewhat
battered, rather famished, and
about dead with river-fever,
he drove the nose of his canoe
into the earth bank by the village
of the Toyaats and promptly fainted
away. While getting his strength
back, in the weeks that followed,
he looked upon Tukesan and found
her good. Like the father of
Shpack, who lived to a ripe old
age among the Siberian Deer People,
Spike O'Brien might have left
his aged bones with the Toyaats.
But romance gripped his heart-strings
and would not let him stay. As
he had journeyed from York Factory
to Fort Yukon, so, first among
men, might he journey from Fort
Yukon to the sea and win the
honour of being the first man
to make the North-West Passage
by land. So he departed down
the river, won the honour, and
was unannaled and unsung. In
after years he ran a sailors'
boarding-house in San Francisco,
where he became esteemed a most
remarkable liar by virtue of
the gospel truths he told. But
a child was born to Tukesan,
who had been childless. And this
child was Jees Uck. Her lineage
has been traced at length to
show that she was neither Indian,
nor Eskimo, nor Innuit, nor much
of anything else; also to show
what waifs of the generations
we are, all of us, and the strange
meanderings of the seed from
which we spring.
What with the vagrant blood
in her and the heritage compounded
of many races, Jees Uck developed
a wonderful young beauty. Bizarre,
perhaps, it was, and Oriental
enough to puzzle any passing
ethnologist. A lithe and slender
grace characterized her. Beyond
a quickened lilt to the imagination,
the contribution of the Celt
was in no wise apparent. It might
possibly have put the warm blood
under her skin, which made her
face less swart and her body
fairer; but that, in turn, might
have come from Shpack, the Big
Fat, who inherited the colour
of his Slavonic father. And,
finally, she had great, blazing
black eyes--the half-caste eye,
round, full-orbed, and sensuous,
which marks the collision of
the dark races with the light.
Also, the white blood in her,
combined with her knowledge that
it was in her, made her, in a
way, ambitious. Otherwise by
upbringing and in outlook on
life, she was wholly and utterly
a Toyaat Indian.
One winter, when she was a
young woman, Neil Bonner came
into her life. But he came into
her life, as he had come into
the country, somewhat reluctantly.
In fact, it was very much against
his will, coming into the country.
Between a father who clipped
coupons and cultivated roses,
and a mother who loved the social
round, Neil Bonner had gone rather
wild. He was not vicious, but
a man with meat in his belly
and without work in the world
has to expend his energy somehow,
and Neil Bonner was such a man.
And he expended his energy in
such a fashion and to such extent
that when the inevitable climax
came, his father, Neil Bonner,
senior, crawled out of his roses
in a panic and looked on his
son with a wondering eye. Then
he hied himself away to a crony
of kindred pursuits, with whom
he was wont to confer over coupons
and roses, and between the two
the destiny of young Neil Bonner
was made manifest. He must go
away, on probation, to live down
his harmless follies in order
that he might live up to their
own excellent standard.
This determined
upon, and young Neil a little
repentant and a
great deal ashamed, the rest
was easy. The cronies were heavy
stockholders in the P. C. Company.
The P. C. Company owned fleets
of river-steamers and ocean-going
craft, and, in addition to farming
the sea, exploited a hundred
thousand square miles or so of
the land that, on the maps of
geographers, usually occupies
the white spaces. So the P. C.
Company sent young Neil Bonner
north, where the white spaces
are, to do its work and to learn
to be good like his father. "Five
years of simplicity, close to
the soil and far from temptation,
will make a man of him," said
old Neil Bonner, and forthwith
crawled back among his roses.
Young Neil set his jaw, pitched
his chin at the proper angle,
and went to work. As an underling
he did his work well and gained
the commendation of his superiors.
Not that he delighted in the
work, but that it was the one
thing that prevented him from
going mad.
The first year he wished he
was dead. The second year he
cursed God. The third year he
was divided between the two emotions,
and in the confusion quarrelled
with a man in authority. He had
the best of the quarrel, though
the man in authority had the
last word,--a word that sent
Neil Bonner into an exile that
made his old billet appear as
paradise. But he went without
a whimper, for the North had
succeeded in making him into
a man.
Here and there,
on the white spaces on the
map, little circlets
like the letter "o" are to be
found, and, appended to these
circlets, on one side or the
other, are names such as "Fort
Hamilton," "Yanana Station," "Twenty
Mile," thus leading one to imagine
that the white spaces are plentifully
besprinkled with towns and villages.
But it is a vain imagining. Twenty
Mile, which is very like the
rest of the posts, is a log building
the size of a corner grocery
with rooms to let up-stairs.
A long- legged cache on stilts
may be found in the back yard;
also a couple of outhouses. The
back yard is unfenced, and extends
to the skyline and an unascertainable
bit beyond. There are no other
houses in sight, though the Toyaats
sometimes pitch a winter camp
a mile or two down the Yukon.
And this is Twenty Mile, one
tentacle of the many-tentacled
P. C. Company. Here the agent,
with an assistant, barters with
the Indians for their furs, and
does an erratic trade on a gold-dust
basis with the wandering miners.
Here, also, the agent and his
assistant yearn all winter for
the spring, and when the spring
comes, camp blasphemously on
the roof while the Yukon washes
out the establishment. And here,
also, in the fourth year of his
sojourn in the land, came Neil
Bonner to take charge.
He had displaced
no agent; for the man that
previously ran
the post had made away with himself; "because
of the rigours of the place," said
the assistant, who still remained;
though the Toyaats, by their
fires, had another version. The
assistant was a shrunken- shouldered,
hollow-chested man, with a cadaverous
face and cavernous cheeks that
his sparse black beard could
not hide. He coughed much, as
though consumption gripped his
lungs, while his eyes had that
mad, fevered light common to
consumptives in the last stage.
Pentley was his name--Amos Pentley--and
Bonner did not like him, though
he felt a pity for the forlorn
and hopeless devil. They did
not get along together, these
two men who, of all men, should
have been on good terms in the
face of the cold and silence
and darkness of the long winter.
In the end, Bonner concluded
that Amos was partly demented,
and left him alone, doing all
the work himself except the cooking.
Even then, Amos had nothing but
bitter looks and an undisguised
hatred for him. This was a great
loss to Bonner; for the smiling
face of one of his own kind,
the cheery word, the sympathy
of comradeship shared with misfortune--these
things meant much; and the winter
was yet young when he began to
realize the added reasons, with
such an assistant, that the previous
agent had found to impel his
own hand against his life.
It was very lonely at Twenty
Mile. The bleak vastness stretched
away on every side to the horizon.
The snow, which was really frost,
flung its mantle over the land
and buried everything in the
silence of death. For days it
was clear and cold, the thermometer
steadily recording forty to fifty
degrees below zero. Then a change
came over the face of things.
What little moisture had oozed
into the atmosphere gathered
into dull grey, formless clouds;
it became quite warm, the thermometer
rising to twenty below; and the
moisture fell out of the sky
in hard frost-granules that hissed
like dry sugar or driving sand
when kicked underfoot. After
that it became clear and cold
again, until enough moisture
had gathered to blanket the earth
from the cold of outer space.
That was all. Nothing happened.
No storms, no churning waters
and threshing forests, nothing
but the machine-like precipitation
of accumulated moisture. Possibly
the most notable thing that occurred
through the weary weeks was the
gliding of the temperature up
to the unprecedented height of
fifteen below. To atone for this,
outer space smote the earth with
its cold till the mercury froze
and the spirit thermometer remained
more than seventy below for a
fortnight, when it burst. There
was no telling how much colder
it was after that. Another occurrence,
monotonous in its regularity,
was the lengthening of the nights,
till day became a mere blink
of light between the darkness.
Neil Bonner was a social animal.
The very follies for which he
was doing penance had been bred
of his excessive sociability.
And here, in the fourth year
of his exile, he found himself
in company- -which were to travesty
the word--with a morose and speechless
creature in whose sombre eyes
smouldered a hatred as bitter
as it was unwarranted. And Bonner,
to whom speech and fellowship
were as the breath of life, went
about as a ghost might go, tantalized
by the gregarious revelries of
some former life. In the day
his lips were compressed, his
face stern; but in the night
he clenched his hands, rolled
about in his blankets, and cried
aloud like a little child. And
he would remember a certain man
in authority and curse him through
the long hours. Also, he cursed
God. But God understands. He
cannot find it in his heart to
blame weak mortals who blaspheme
in Alaska.
And here, to the post of Twenty
Mile, came Jees Uck, to trade
for flour and bacon, and beads,
and bright scarlet cloths for
her fancy work. And further,
and unwittingly, she came to
the post of Twenty Mile to make
a lonely man more lonely, make
him reach out empty arms in his
sleep. For Neil Bonner was only
a man. When she first came into
the store, he looked at her long,
as a thirsty man may look at
a flowing well. And she, with
the heritage bequeathed her by
Spike O'Brien, imagined daringly
and smiled up into his eyes,
not as the swart-skinned peoples
should smile at the royal races,
but as a woman smiles at a man.
The thing was inevitable; only,
he did not see it, and fought
against her as fiercely and passionately
as he was drawn towards her.
And she? She was Jees Uck, by
upbringing wholly and utterly
a Toyaat Indian woman.
She came often to the post
to trade. And often she sat by
the big wood stove and chatted
in broken English with Neil Bonner.
And he came to look for her coming;
and on the days she did not come
he was worried and restless.
Sometimes he stopped to think,
and then she was met coldly,
with a resolve that perplexed
and piqued her, and which, she
was convinced, was not sincere.
But more often he did not dare
to think, and then all went well
and there were smiles and laughter.
And Amos Pentley, gasping like
a stranded catfish, his hollow
cough a-reek with the grave,
looked upon it all and grinned.
He, who loved life, could not
live, and it rankled his soul
that others should be able to
live. Wherefore he hated Bonner,
who was so very much alive and
into whose eyes sprang joy at
the sight of Jees Uck. As for
Amos, the very thought of the
girl was sufficient to send his
blood pounding up into a hemorrhage.
Jees Uck, whose mind was simple,
who thought elementally and was
unused to weighing life in its
subtler quantities, read Amos
Pentley like a book. She warned
Bonner, openly and bluntly, in
few words; but the complexities
of higher existence confused
the situation to him, and he
laughed at her evident anxiety.
To him, Amos was a poor, miserable
devil, tottering desperately
into the grave. And Bonner, who
had suffered much, found it easy
to forgive greatly.
But one morning, during a bitter
snap, he got up from the breakfast-table
and went into the store. Jees
Uck was already there, rosy from
the trail, to buy a sack of flour.
A few minutes later, he was out
in the snow lashing the flour
on her sled. As he bent over
he noticed a stiffness in his
neck and felt a premonition of
impending physical misfortune.
And as he put the last half-
hitch into the lashing and attempted
to straighten up, a quick spasm
seized him and he sank into the
snow. Tense and quivering, head
jerked back, limbs extended,
back arched and mouth twisted
and distorted, he appeared as
though being racked limb from
limb. Without cry or sound, Jees
Uck was in the snow beside him;
but he clutched both her wrists
spasmodically, and as long as
the convulsion endured she was
helpless. In a few moments the
spasm relaxed and he was left
weak and fainting, his forehead
beaded with sweat, and his lips
flecked with foam.
"Quick!" he muttered, in a
strange, hoarse voice. "Quick!
Inside!"
He started to crawl on hands
and knees, but she raised him
up, and, supported by her young
arm, he made faster progress.
As he entered the store the spasm
seized him again, and his body
writhed irresistibly away from
her and rolled and curled on
the floor. Amos Pentley came
and looked on with curious eyes.
"Oh, Amos!" she cried in an
agony of apprehension and helplessness, "him
die, you think?" But Amos shrugged
his shoulders and continued to
look on.
Bonner's body
went slack, the tense muscles
easing down and
an expression of relief coming
into his face. "Quick!" he gritted
between his teeth, his mouth
twisting with the on-coming of
the next spasm and with his effort
to control it. "Quick, Jees Uck!
The medicine! Never mind! Drag
me!"
She knew where the medicine-chest
stood, at the rear of the room
beyond the stove, and thither,
by the legs, she dragged the
struggling man. As the spasm
passed he began, very faint and
very sick, to overhaul the chest.
He had seen dogs die exhibiting
symptoms similar to his own,
and he knew what should be done.
He held up a vial of chloral
hydrate, but his fingers were
too weak and nerveless to draw
the cork. This Jees Uck did for
him, while he was plunged into
another convulsion. As he came
out of it he found the open bottle
proffered him, and looked into
the great black eyes of the woman
and read what men have always
read in the Mate-woman's eyes.
Taking a full dose of the stuff,
he sank back until another spasm
had passed. Then he raised himself
limply on his elbow.
"Listen, Jees Uck!" he said
very slowly, as though aware
of the necessity for haste and
yet afraid to hasten. "Do what
I say. Stay by my side, but do
not touch me. I must be very
quiet, but you must not go away." His
jaw began to set and his face
to quiver and distort with the
fore-running pangs, but he gulped
and struggled to master them. "Do
not got away. And do not let
Amos go away. Understand! Amos
must stay right here."
She nodded her head, and he
passed off into the first of
many convulsions, which gradually
diminished in force and frequency.
Jees Uck hung over him remembering
his injunction and not daring
to touch him. Once Amos grew
restless and made as though to
go into the kitchen; but a quick
blaze from her eyes quelled him,
and after that, save for his
laboured breathing and charnel
cough, he was very quiet.
Bonner slept. The blink of
light that marked the day disappeared.
Amos, followed about by the woman's
eyes, lighted the kerosene lamps.
Evening came on. Through the
north window the heavens were
emblazoned with an auroral display,
which flamed and flared and died
down into blackness. Some time
after that, Neil Bonner roused.
First he looked to see that Amos
was still there, then smiled
at Jees Uck and pulled himself
up. Every muscle was stiff and
sore, and he smiled ruefully,
pressing and prodding himself
as if to ascertain the extent
of the ravage. Then his face
went stern and businesslike.
"Jees Uck," he said, "take
a candle. Go into the kitchen.
There is food on the table--biscuits
and beans and bacon; also, coffee
in the pot on the stove. Bring
it here on the counter. Also,
bring tumblers and water and
whisky, which you will find on
the top shelf of the locker.
Do not forget the whisky."
Having swallowed a stiff glass
of the whisky, he went carefully
through the medicine chest, now
and again putting aside, with
definite purpose, certain bottles
and vials. Then he set to work
on the food, attempting a crude
analysis. He had not been unused
to the laboratory in his college
days and was possessed of sufficient
imagination to achieve results
with his limited materials. The
condition of tetanus, which had
marked his paroxysms, simplified
matters, and he made but one
test. The coffee yielded nothing;
nor did the beans. To the biscuits
he devoted the utmost care. Amos,
who knew nothing of chemistry,
looked on with steady curiosity.
But Jees Uck, who had boundless
faith in the white man's wisdom,
and especially in Neil Bonner's
wisdom, and who not only knew
nothing but knew that she knew
nothing watched his face rather
than his hands.
Step by step he eliminated
possibilities, until he came
to the final test. He was using
a thin medicine vial for a tube,
and this he held between him
and the light, watching the slow
precipitation of a salt through
the solution contained in the
tube. He said nothing, but he
saw what he had expected to see.
And Jees Uck, her eyes riveted
on his face, saw something too,--something
that made her spring like a tigress
upon Amos, and with splendid
suppleness and strength bend
his body back across her knee.
Her knife was out of its sheaf
and uplifted, glinting in the
lamplight. Amos was snarling;
but Bonner intervened ere the
blade could fall.
"That's a good
girl, Jees Uck. But never mind.
Let him go!"
She dropped the man obediently,
though with protest writ large
on her face; and his body thudded
to the floor. Bonner nudged him
with his moccasined foot.
"Get up, Amos!" he commanded. "You've
got to pack an outfit yet to-night
and hit the trail."
"You don't mean to say--" Amos
blurted savagely.
"I mean to say that you tried
to kill me," Neil went on in
cold, even tones. "I mean to
say that you killed Birdsall,
for all the Company believes
he killed himself. You used strychnine
in my case. God knows with what
you fixed him. Now I can't hang
you. You're too near dead as
it is. But Twenty Mile is too
small for the pair of us, and
you've got to mush. It's two
hundred miles to Holy Cross.
You can make it if you're careful
not to over-exert. I'll give
you grub, a sled, and three dogs.
You'll be as safe as if you were
in jail, for you can't get out
of the country. And I'll give
you one chance. You're almost
dead. Very well. I shall send
no word to the Company until
the spring. In the meantime,
the thing for you to do is to
die. Now MUSH!"
"You go to bed!" Jees Uck insisted,
when Amos had churned away into
the night towards Holy Cross. "You
sick man yet, Neil."
"And you're a good girl, Jees
Uck," he answered. "And here's
my hand on it. But you must go
home."
"You don't like me," she
said simply.
He smiled,
helped her on with her PARKA,
and led her to the
door. "Only too well, Jees Uck," he
said softly; "only too well."
After that
the pall of the Arctic night
fell deeper and
blacker on the land. Neil Bonner
discovered that he had failed
to put proper valuation upon
even the sullen face of the murderous
and death- stricken Amos. It
became very lonely at Twenty
Mile. "For the love of God, Prentiss,
send me a man," he wrote to the
agent at Fort Hamilton, three
hundred miles up river. Six weeks
later the Indian messenger brought
back a reply. It was characteristic: "Hell.
Both feet frozen. Need him myself--Prentiss."
To make matters worse, most
of the Toyaats were in the back
country on the flanks of a caribou
herd, and Jees Uck was with them.
Removing to a distance seemed
to bring her closer than ever,
and Neil Bonner found himself
picturing her, day by day, in
camp and on trail. It is not
good to be alone. Often he went
out of the quiet store, bare-headed
and frantic, and shook his fist
at the blink of day that came
over the southern sky-line. And
on still, cold nights he left
his bed and stumbled into the
frost, where he assaulted the
silence at the top of his lungs,
as though it were some tangible,
sentiment thing that he might
arouse; or he shouted at the
sleeping dogs till they howled
and howled again. One shaggy
brute he brought into the post,
playing that it was the new man
sent by Prentiss. He strove to
make it sleep decently under
blankets at nights and to sit
at table and eat as a man should;
but the beast, mere domesticated
wolf that it was, rebelled, and
sought out dark corners and snarled
and bit him in the leg, and was
finally beaten and driven forth.
Then the trick of personification
seized upon Neil Bonner and mastered
him. All the forces of his environment
metamorphosed into living, breathing
entities and came to live with
him. He recreated the primitive
pantheon; reared an altar to
the sun and burned candle fat
and bacon grease thereon; and
in the unfenced yard, by the
long-legged cache, made a frost
devil, which he was wont to make
faces at and mock when the mercury
oozed down into the bulb. All
this in play, of course. He said
it to himself that it was in
play, and repeated it over and
over to make sure, unaware that
madness is ever prone to express
itself in make-believe and play.
One midwinter day, Father Champreau,
a Jesuit missionary, pulled into
Twenty Mile. Bonner fell upon
him and dragged him into the
post, and clung to him and wept,
until the priest wept with him
from sheer compassion. Then Bonner
became madly hilarious and made
lavish entertainment, swearing
valiantly that his guest should
not depart. But Father Champreau
was pressing to Salt Water on
urgent business for his order,
and pulled out next morning,
with Bonner's blood threatened
on his head.
And the threat was in a fair
way toward realization, when
the Toyaats returned from their
long hunt to the winter camp.
They had many furs, and there
was much trading and stir at
Twenty Mile. Also, Jees Uck came
to buy beads and scarlet cloths
and things, and Bonner began
to find himself again. He fought
for a week against her. Then
the end came one night when she
rose to leave. She had not forgotten
her repulse, and the pride that
drove Spike O'Brien on to complete
the North-West Passage by land
was her pride.
"I go now," she said; "good-night,
Neil."
But he came
up behind her. "Nay,
it is not well," he said.
And as she turned her face
toward his with a sudden joyful
flash, he bent forward, slowly
and gravely, as it were a sacred
thing, and kissed her on the
lips. The Toyaats had never taught
her the meaning of a kiss upon
the lips, but she understood
and was glad.
With the coming of Jees Uck,
at once things brightened up.
She was regal in her happiness,
a source of unending delight.
The elemental workings of her
mind and her naive little ways
made an immense sum of pleasurable
surprise to the over-civilized
man that had stooped to catch
her up. Not alone was she solace
to his loneliness, but her primitiveness
rejuvenated his jaded mind. It
was as though, after long wandering,
he had returned to pillow his
head in the lap of Mother Earth.
In short, in Jees Uck he found
the youth of the world--the youth
and the strength and the joy.
And to fill
the full round of his need,
and that they might
not see overmuch of each other,
there arrived at Twenty Mile
one Sandy MacPherson, as companionable
a man as ever whistled along
the trail or raised a ballad
by a camp-fire. A Jesuit priest
had run into his camp, a couple
of hundred miles up the Yukon,
in the nick of time to say a
last word over the body of Sandy's
partner. And on departing, the
priest had said, "My son, you
will be lonely now." And Sandy
had bowed his head brokenly. "At
Twenty Mile," the priest added, "there
is a lonely man. You have need
of each other, my son."
So it was that Sandy became
a welcome third at the post,
brother to the man and woman
that resided there. He took Bonner
moose-hunting and wolf-trapping;
and, in return, Bonner resurrected
a battered and way-worn volume
and made him friends with Shakespeare,
till Sandy declaimed iambic pentameters
to his sled-dogs whenever they
waxed mutinous. And of the long
evenings they played cribbage
and talked and disagreed about
the universe, the while Jees
Uck rocked matronly in an easy-chair
and darned their moccasins and
socks.
Spring came. The sun shot up
out of the south. The land exchanged
its austere robes for the garb
of a smiling wanton. Everywhere
light laughed and life invited.
The days stretched out their
balmy length and the nights passed
from blinks of darkness to no
darkness at all. The river bared
its bosom, and snorting steamboats
challenged the wilderness. There
were stir and bustle, new faces,
and fresh facts. An assistant
arrived at Twenty Mile, and Sandy
MacPherson wandered off with
a bunch of prospectors to invade
the Koyokuk country. And there
were newspapers and magazines
and letters for Neil Bonner.
And Jees Uck looked on in worriment,
for she knew his kindred talked
with him across the world.
Without much shock, it came
to him that his father was dead.
There was a sweet letter of forgiveness,
dictated in his last hours. There
were official letters from the
Company, graciously ordering
him to turn the post over to
the assistant and permitting
him to depart at his earliest
pleasure. A long, legal affair
from the lawyers informed him
of interminable lists of stocks
and bonds, real estate, rents,
and chattels that were his by
his father's will. And a dainty
bit of stationery, sealed and
monogramed, implored dear Neil's
return to his heart-broken and
loving mother.
Neil Bonner did some swift
thinking, and when the Yukon
Belle coughed in to the bank
on her way down to Bering Sea,
he departed-- departed with the
ancient lie of quick return young
and blithe on his lips.
"I'll come back, dear Jees
Uck, before the first snow flies," he
promised her, between the last
kisses at the gang-plank.
And not only did he promise,
but, like the majority of men
under the same circumstances,
he really meant it. To John Thompson,
the new agent, he gave orders
for the extension of unlimited
credit to his wife, Jees Uck.
Also, with his last look from
the deck of the Yukon Belle,
he saw a dozen men at work rearing
the logs that were to make the
most comfortable house along
a thousand miles of river front--the
house of Jees Uck, and likewise
the house of Neil Bonner--ere
the first flurry of snow. For
he fully and fondly meant to
come back. Jees Uck was dear
to him, and, further, a golden
future awaited the north. With
his father's money he intended
to verify that future. An ambitious
dream allured him. With his four
years of experience, and aided
by the friendly cooperation of
the P. C. Company, he would return
to become the Rhodes of Alaska.
And he would return, fast as
steam could drive, as soon as
he had put into shape the affairs
of his father, whom he had never
known, and comforted his mother,
whom he had forgotten.
There was much ado when Neil
Bonner came back from the Arctic.
The fires were lighted and the
fleshpots slung, and he took
of it all and called it good.
Not only was he bronzed and creased,
but he was a new man under his
skin, with a grip on things and
a seriousness and control. His
old companions were amazed when
he declined to hit up the pace
in the good old way, while his
father's crony rubbed hands gleefully,
and became an authority upon
the reclamation of wayward and
idle youth.
For four years Neil Bonner's
mind had lain fallow. Little
that was new had been added to
it, but it had undergone a process
of selection. It had, so to say,
been purged of the trivial and
superfluous. He had lived quick
years, down in the world; and,
up in the wilds, time had been
given him to organize the confused
mass of his experiences. His
superficial standards had been
flung to the winds and new standards
erected on deeper and broader
generalizations. Concerning civilization,
he had gone away with one set
of values, had returned with
another set of values. Aided,
also, by the earth smells in
his nostrils and the earth sights
in his eyes, he laid hold of
the inner significance of civilization,
beholding with clear vision its
futilities and powers. It was
a simple little philosophy he
evolved. Clean living was the
way to grace. Duty performed
was sanctification. One must
live clean and do his duty in
order that he might work. Work
was salvation. And to work toward
life abundant, and more abundant,
was to be in line with the scheme
of things and the will of God.
Primarily, he was of the city.
And his fresh earth grip and
virile conception of humanity
gave him a finer sense of civilization
and endeared civilization to
him. Day by day the people of
the city clung closer to him
and the world loomed more colossal.
And, day by day, Alaska grew
more remote and less real. And
then he met Kitty Sharon--a woman
of his own flesh and blood and
kind; a woman who put her hand
into his hand and drew him to
her, till he forgot the day and
hour and the time of the year
the first snow flies on the Yukon.
Jees Uck moved into her grand
log-house and dreamed away three
golden summer months. Then came
the autumn, post-haste before
the down rush of winter. The
air grew thin and sharp, the
days thin and short. The river
ran sluggishly, and skin ice
formed in the quiet eddies. All
migratory life departed south,
and silence fell upon the land.
The first snow flurries came,
and the last homing steamboat
bucked desperately into the running
mush ice. Then came the hard
ice, solid cakes and sheets,
till the Yukon ran level with
its banks. And when all this
ceased the river stood still
and the blinking days lost themselves
in the darkness.
John Thompson, the new agent,
laughed; but Jees Uck had faith
in the mischances of sea and
river. Neil Bonner might be frozen
in anywhere between Chilkoot
Pass and St. Michael's, for the
last travellers of the year are
always caught by the ice, when
they exchange boat for sled and
dash on through the long hours
behind the flying dogs.
But no flying dogs came up
the trail, nor down the trail,
to Twenty Mile. And John Thompson
told Jees Uck, with a certain
gladness ill concealed, that
Bonner would never come back
again. Also, and brutally, he
suggested his own eligibility.
Jees Uck laughed in his face
and went back to her grand log-house.
But when midwinter came, when
hope dies down and life is at
its lowest ebb, Jees Uck found
she had no credit at the store.
This was Thompson's doing, and
he rubbed his hands, and walked
up and down, and came to his
door and looked up at Jees Uck's
house and waited. And he continued
to wait. She sold her dog-team
to a party of miners and paid
cash for her food. And when Thompson
refused to honour even her coin,
Toyaat Indians made her purchases,
and sledded them up to her house
in the dark.
In February the first post
came in over the ice, and John
Thompson read in the society
column of a five-months-old paper
of the marriage of Neil Bonner
and Kitty Sharon. Jees Uck held
the door ajar and him outside
while he imparted the information;
and, when he had done, laughed
pridefully and did not believe.
In March, and all alone, she
gave birth to a man-child, a
brave bit of new life at which
she marvelled. And at that hour,
a year later, Neil Bonner sat
by another bed, marvelling at
another bit of new life that
had fared into the world.
The snow went off the ground
and the ice broke out of the
Yukon. The sun journeyed north,
and journeyed south again; and,
the money from the being spent,
Jees Uck went back to her own
people. Oche Ish, a shrewd hunter,
proposed to kill the meat for
her and her babe, and catch the
salmon, if she would marry him.
And Imego and Hah Yo and Wy Nooch,
husky young hunters all, made
similar proposals. But she elected
to live alone and seek her own
meat and fish. She sewed moccasins
and PARKAS and mittens--warm,
serviceable things, and pleasing
to the eye, withal, what of the
ornamental hair-tufts and bead-work.
These she sold to the miners,
who were drifting faster into
the land each year. And not only
did she win food that was good
and plentiful, but she laid money
by, and one day took passage
on the Yukon Belle down the river.
At St. Michael's she washed
dishes in the kitchen of the
post. The servants of the Company
wondered at the remarkable woman
with the remarkable child, though
they asked no questions and she
vouchsafed nothing. But just
before Bering Sea closed in for
the year, she bought a passage
south on a strayed sealing schooner.
That winter she cooked for Captain
Markheim's household at Unalaska,
and in the spring continued south
to Sitka on a whisky sloop. Later
on appeared at Metlakahtla, which
is near to St. Mary's on the
end of the Pan-Handle, where
she worked in the cannery through
the salmon season. When autumn
came and the Siwash fishermen
prepared to return to Puget Sound,
she embarked with a couple of
families in a big cedar canoe;
and with them she threaded the
hazardous chaos of the Alaskan
and Canadian coasts, till the
Straits of Juan de Fuca were
passed and she led her boy by
the hand up the hard pave of
Seattle.
There she met
Sandy MacPherson, on a windy
corner, very much
surprised and, when he had heard
her story, very wroth--not so
wroth as he might have been,
had he known of Kitty Sharon;
but of her Jees Uck breathed
not a word, for she had never
believed. Sandy, who read commonplace
and sordid desertion into the
circumstance, strove to dissuade
her from her trip to San Francisco,
where Neil Bonner was supposed
to live when he was at home.
And, having striven, he made
her comfortable, bought her tickets
and saw her off, the while smiling
in her face and muttering "dam-shame" into
his beard.
With roar and rumble, through
daylight and dark, swaying and
lurching between the dawns, soaring
into the winter snows and sinking
to summer valleys, skirting depths,
leaping chasms, piercing mountains,
Jees Uck and her boy were hurled
south. But she had no fear of
the iron stallion; nor was she
stunned by this masterful civilization
of Neil Bonner's people. It seemed,
rather, that she saw with greater
clearness the wonder that a man
of such godlike race had held
her in his arms. The screaming
medley of San Francisco, with
its restless shipping, belching
factories, and thundering traffic,
did not confuse her; instead,
she comprehended swiftly the
pitiful sordidness of Twenty
Mile and the skin-lodged Toyaat
village. And she looked down
at the boy that clutched her
hand and wondered that she had
borne him by such a man.
She paid the hack-driver five
pieces and went up the stone
steps of Neil Bonner's front
door. A slant-eyed Japanese parleyed
with her for a fruitless space,
then led her inside and disappeared.
She remained in the hall, which
to her simply fancy seemed to
be the guest-room--the show-place
wherein were arrayed all the
household treasures with the
frank purpose of parade and dazzlement.
The walls and ceiling were of
oiled and panelled redwood. The
floor was more glassy than glare-ice,
and she sought standing place
on one of the great skins that
gave a sense of security to the
polished surface. A huge fireplace--an
extravagant fireplace, she deemed
it--yawned in the farther wall.
A flood of light, mellowed by
stained glass, fell across the
room, and from the far end came
the white gleam of a marble figure.
This much she saw, and more,
when the slant-eyed servant led
the way past another room--of
which she caught a fleeting glance--and
into a third, both of which dimmed
the brave show of the entrance
hall. And to her eyes the great
house seemed to hold out the
promise of endless similar rooms.
There was such length and breadth
to them, and the ceilings were
so far away! For the first time
since her advent into the white
man's civilization, a feeling
of awe laid hold of her. Neil,
her Neil, lived in this house,
breathed the air of it, and lay
down at night and slept! It was
beautiful, all this that she
saw, and it pleased her; but
she felt, also, the wisdom and
mastery behind. It was the concrete
expression of power in terms
of beauty, and it was the power
that she unerringly divined.
And then came a woman, queenly
tall, crowned with a glory of
hair that was like a golden sun.
She seemed to come toward Jees
Uck as a ripple of music across
still water; her sweeping garment
itself a song, her body playing
rhythmically beneath. Jees Uck
herself was a man compeller.
There were Oche Ish and Imego
and Hah Yo and Wy Nooch, to say
nothing of Neil Bonner and John
Thompson and other white men
that had looked upon her and
felt her power. But she gazed
upon the wide blue eyes and rose-white
skin of this woman that advanced
to meet her, and she measured
her with woman's eyes looking
through man's eyes; and as a
man compeller she felt herself
diminish and grow insignificant
before this radiant and flashing
creature.
"You wish to see my husband?" the
woman asked; and Jees Uck gasped
at the liquid silver of a voice
that had never sounded harsh
cries at snarling wolf-dogs,
nor moulded itself to a guttural
speech, nor toughened in storm
and frost and camp smoke.
"No," Jees Uck answered slowly
and gropingly, in order that
she might do justice to her English. "I
come to see Neil Bonner."
"He is my husband," the
woman laughed.
Then it was true! John Thompson
had not lied that bleak February
day, when she laughed pridefully
and shut the door in his face.
As once she had thrown Amos Pentley
across her knee and ripped her
knife into the air, so now she
felt impelled to spring upon
this woman and bear her back
and down, and tear the life out
of her fair body. But Jees Uck
was thinking quickly and gave
no sign, and Kitty Bonner little
dreamed how intimately she had
for an instant been related with
sudden death.
Jees Uck nodded her head that
she understood, and Kitty Bonner
explained that Neil was expected
at any moment. Then they sat
down on ridiculously comfortable
chairs, and Kitty sought to entertain
her strange visitor, and Jees
Uck strove to help her.
"You knew my husband in the
North?" Kitty asked, once.
"Sure. I wash um clothes," Jees
Uck had answered, her English
abruptly beginning to grow atrocious.
"And this is
your boy? I have a little girl."
Kitty caused her daughter to
be brought, and while the children,
after their manner, struck an
acquaintance, the mothers indulged
in the talk of mothers and drank
tea from cups so fragile that
Jees Uck feared lest hers should
crumble to pieces beneath her
fingers. Never had she seen such
cups, so delicate and dainty.
In her mind she compared them
with the woman who poured the
tea, and there uprose in contrast
the gourds and pannikins of the
Toyaat village and the clumsy
mugs of Twenty Mile, to which
she likened herself. And in such
fashion and such terms the problem
presented itself. She was beaten.
There was a woman other than
herself better fitted to bear
and upbring Neil Bonner's children.
Just as his people exceeded her
people, so did his womankind
exceed her. They were the man
compellers, as their men were
the world compellers. She looked
at the rose-white tenderness
of Kitty Bonner's skin and remembered
the sun-beat on her own face.
Likewise she looked from brown
hand to white--the one, work-worn
and hardened by whip-handle and
paddle, the other as guiltless
of toil and soft as a newborn
babe's. And, for all the obvious
softness and apparent weakness,
Jees Uck looked into the blue
eyes and saw the mastery she
had seen in Neil Bonner's eyes
and in the eyes of Neil Bonner's
people.
"Why, it's Jees Uck!" Neil
Bonner said, when he entered.
He said it calmly, with even
a ring of joyful cordiality,
coming over to her and shaking
both her hands, but looking into
her eyes with a worry in his
own that she understood.
"Hello, Neil!" she said. "You
look much good."
"Fine, fine, Jees Uck," he
answered heartily, though secretly
studying Kitty for some sign
of what had passed between the
two. Yet he knew his wife too
well to expect, even though the
worst had passed, such a sign.
"Well, I can't say how glad
I am to see you," he went on. "What's
happened? Did you strike a mine?
And when did you get in?"
"Oo-a, I get in to-day," she
replied, her voice instinctively
seeking its guttural parts. "I
no strike it, Neil. You known
Cap'n Markheim, Unalaska? I cook,
his house, long time. No spend
money. Bime-by, plenty. Pretty
good, I think, go down and see
White Man's Land. Very fine,
White Man's Land, very fine," she
added. Her English puzzled him,
for Sandy and he had sought,
constantly, to better her speech,
and she had proved an apt pupil.
Now it seemed that she had sunk
back into her race. Her face
was guileless, stolidly guileless,
giving no cue. Kitty's untroubled
brow likewise baffled him. What
had happened? How much had been
said? and how much guessed?
While he wrestled with these
questions and while Jees Uck
wrestled with her problem--never
had he looked so wonderful and
great--a silence fell.
"To think that you knew my
husband in Alaska!" Kitty said
softly.
Knew him! Jees Uck could not
forbear a glance at the boy she
had borne him, and his eyes followed
hers mechanically to the window
where played the two children.
An iron hand seemed to tighten
across his forehead. His knees
went weak and his heart leaped
up and pounded like a fist against
his breast. His boy! He had never
dreamed it!
Little Kitty Bonner, fairylike
in gauzy lawn, with pinkest of
cheeks and bluest of dancing
eyes, arms outstretched and lips
puckered in invitation, was striving
to kiss the boy. And the boy,
lean and lithe, sunbeaten and
browned, skin-clad and in hair-
fringed and hair-tufted MUCLUCS
that showed the wear of the sea
and rough work, coolly withstood
her advances, his body straight
and stiff with the peculiar erectness
common to children of savage
people. A stranger in a strange
land, unabashed and unafraid,
he appeared more like an untamed
animal, silent and watchful,
his black eyes flashing from
face to face, quiet so long as
quiet endured, but prepared to
spring and fight and tear and
scratch for life, at the first
sign of danger.
The contrast between boy and
girl was striking, but not pitiful.
There was too much strength in
the boy for that, waif that he
was of the generations of Shpack,
Spike O'Brien, and Bonner. In
his features, clean cut as a
cameo and almost classic in their
severity, there were the power
and achievement of his father,
and his grandfather, and the
one known as the Big Fat, who
was captured by the Sea people
and escaped to Kamchatka.
Neil Bonner fought his emotion
down, swallowed it down, and
choked over it, though his face
smiled with good-humour and the
joy with which one meets a friend.
"Your boy, eh, Jees Uck?" he
said. And then turning to Kitty: "Handsome
fellow! He'll do something with
those two hands of his in this
our world."
Kitty nodded
concurrence. "What
is your name?" she asked.
The young savage flashed his
quick eyes upon her and dwelt
over her for a space, seeking
out, as it were, the motive beneath
the question.
"Neil," he
answered deliberately when
the scrutiny had satisfied
him.
"Injun talk," Jees Uck interposed,
glibly manufacturing languages
on the spur of the moment. "Him
Injun talk, NEE-AL all the same
'cracker.' Him baby, him like
cracker; him cry for cracker.
Him say, 'NEE-AL, NEE-AL,' all
time him say, 'NEE-AL.' Then
I say that um name. So um name
all time Nee-al."
Never did sound more blessed
fall upon Neil Bonner's ear than
that lie from Jees Uck's lips.
It was the cue, and he knew there
was reason for Kitty's untroubled
brow.
"And his father?" Kitty asked. "He
must be a fine man."
"Oo-a, yes," was the reply. "Um
father fine man. Sure!"
"Did you know him, Neil?" queried
Kitty.
"Know him? Most intimately," Neil
answered, and harked back to
dreary Twenty Mile and the man
alone in the silence with his
thoughts.
And here might well end the
story of Jees Uck but for the
crown she put upon her renunciation.
When she returned to the North
to dwell in her grand log-house,
John Thompson found that the
P. C. Company could make a shift
somehow to carry on its business
without his aid. Also, the new
agent and the succeeding agents
received instructions that the
woman Jees Uck should be given
whatsoever goods and grub she
desired, in whatsoever quantities
she ordered, and that no charge
should be placed upon the books.
Further, the Company paid yearly
to the woman Jees Uck a pension
of five thousand dollars.
When he had attained suitable
age, Father Champreau laid hands
upon the boy, and the time was
not long when Jees Uck received
letters regularly from the Jesuit
college in Maryland. Later on
these letters came from Italy,
and still later from France.
And in the end there returned
to Alaska one Father Neil, a
man mighty for good in the land,
who loved his mother and who
ultimately went into a wider
field and rose to high authority
in the order.
Jees Uck was a young woman
when she went back into the North,
and men still looked upon her
and yearned. But she lived straight,
and no breath was ever raised
save in commendation. She stayed
for a while with the good sisters
at Holy Cross, where she learned
to read and write and became
versed in practical medicine
and surgery. After that she returned
to her grand log-house and gathered
about her the young girls of
the Toyaat village, to show them
the way of their feet in the
world. It is neither Protestant
nor Catholic, this school in
the house built by Neil Bonner
for Jees Uck, his wife; but the
missionaries of all the sects
look upon it with equal favour.
The latchstring is always out,
and tired prospectors and trail-weary
men turn aside from the flowing
river or frozen trail to rest
there for a space and be warm
by her fire. And, down in the
States, Kitty Bonner is pleased
at the interest her husband takes
in Alaskan education and the
large sums he devotes to that
purpose; and, though she often
smiles and chaffs, deep down
and secretly she is but the prouder
of him. |