I wash my hands of him at the
start. I cannot father his tales,
nor will I be responsible for
them. I make these preliminary
reservations, observe, as a guard
upon my own integrity. I possess
a certain definite position in
a small way, also a wife; and
for the good name of the community
that honours my existence with
its approval, and for the sake
of her posterity and mine, I
cannot take the chances I once
did, nor foster probabilities
with the careless improvidence
of youth. So, I repeat, I wash
my hands of him, this Nimrod,
this mighty hunter, this homely,
blue-eyed, freckle-faced Thomas
Stevens.
Having been honest to myself,
and to whatever prospective olive
branches my wife may be pleased
to tender me, I can now afford
to be generous. I shall not criticize
the tales told me by Thomas Stevens,
and, further, I shall withhold
my judgment. If it be asked why,
I can only add that judgment
I have none. Long have I pondered,
weighed, and balanced, but never
have my conclusions been twice
the same--forsooth! because Thomas
Stevens is a greater man than
I. If he have told truths, well
and good; if untruths, still
well and good. For who can prove?
or who disprove? I eliminate
myself from the proposition,
while those of little faith may
do as I have done--go find the
same Thomas Stevens, and discuss
to his face the various matters
which, if fortune serve, I shall
relate. As to where he may be
found? The directions are simple:
anywhere between 53 north latitude
and the Pole, on the one hand;
and, on the other, the likeliest
hunting grounds that lie between
the east coast of Siberia and
farthermost Labrador. That he
is there, somewhere, within that
clearly defined territory, I
pledge the word of an honourable
man whose expectations entail
straight speaking and right living.
Thomas Stevens may have toyed
prodigiously with truth, but
when we first met (it were well
to mark this point), he wandered
into my camp when I thought myself
a thousand miles beyond the outermost
post of civilization. At the
sight of his human face, the
first in weary months, I could
have sprung forward and folded
him in my arms (and I am not
by any means a demonstrative
man); but to him his visit seemed
the most casual thing under the
sun. He just strolled into the
light of my camp, passed the
time of day after the custom
of men on beaten trails, threw
my snowshoes the one way and
a couple of dogs the other, and
so made room for himself by the
fire. Said he'd just dropped
in to borrow a pinch of soda
and to see if I had any decent
tobacco. He plucked forth an
ancient pipe, loaded it with
painstaking care, and, without
as much as by your leave, whacked
half the tobacco of my pouch
into his. Yes, the stuff was
fairly good. He sighed with the
contentment of the just, and
literally absorbed the smoke
from the crisping yellow flakes,
and it did my smoker's heart
good to behold him.
Hunter? Trapper? Prospector?
He shrugged his shoulders No;
just sort of knocking round a
bit. Had come up from the Great
Slave some time since, and was
thinking of trapsing over into
the Yukon country. The factor
of Koshim had spoken about the
discoveries on the Klondike,
and he was of a mind to run over
for a peep. I noticed that he
spoke of the Klondike in the
archaic vernacular, calling it
the Reindeer River--a conceited
custom that the Old Timers employ
against the CHECHAQUAS and all
tenderfeet in general. But he
did it so naively and as such
a matter of course, that there
was no sting, and I forgave him.
He also had it in view, he said,
before he crossed the divide
into the Yukon, to make a little
run up Fort o' Good Hope way.
Now Fort o'
Good Hope is a far journey
to the north, over
and beyond the Circle, in a place
where the feet of few men have
trod; and when a nondescript
ragamuffin comes in out of the
night, from nowhere in particular,
to sit by one's fire and discourse
on such in terms of "trapsing" and "a
little run," it is fair time
to rouse up and shake off the
dream. Wherefore I looked about
me; saw the fly and, underneath,
the pine boughs spread for the
sleeping furs; saw the grub sacks,
the camera, the frosty breaths
of the dogs circling on the edge
of the light; and, above, a great
streamer of the aurora, bridging
the zenith from south-east to
north-west. I shivered. There
is a magic in the Northland night,
that steals in on one like fevers
from malarial marshes. You are
clutched and downed before you
are aware. Then I looked to the
snowshoes, lying prone and crossed
where he had flung them. Also
I had an eye to my tobacco pouch.
Half, at least, of its goodly
store had vamosed. That settled
it. Fancy had not tricked me
after all.
Crazed with suffering, I thought,
looking steadfastly at the man--
one of those wild stampeders,
strayed far from his bearings
and wandering like a lost soul
through great vastnesses and
unknown deeps. Oh, well, let
his moods slip on, until, mayhap,
he gathers his tangled wits together.
Who knows?--the mere sound of
a fellow- creature's voice may
bring all straight again.
So I led him on in talk, and
soon I marvelled, for he talked
of game and the ways thereof.
He had killed the Siberian wolf
of westernmost Alaska, and the
chamois in the secret Rockies.
He averred he knew the haunts
where the last buffalo still
roamed; that he had hung on the
flanks of the caribou when they
ran by the hundred thousand,
and slept in the Great Barrens
on the musk-ox's winter trail.
And I shifted my judgment accordingly
(the first revision, but by no
account the last), and deemed
him a monumental effigy of truth.
Why it was I know not, but the
spirit moved me to repeat a tale
told to me by a man who had dwelt
in the land too long to know
better. It was of the great bear
that hugs the steep slopes of
St Elias, never descending to
the levels of the gentler inclines.
Now God so constituted this creature
for its hillside habitat that
the legs of one side are all
of a foot longer than those of
the other. This is mighty convenient,
as will be reality admitted.
So I hunted this rare beast in
my own name, told it in the first
person, present tense, painted
the requisite locale, gave it
the necessary garnishings and
touches of verisimilitude, and
looked to see the man stunned
by the recital.
Not he. Had he doubted, I could
have forgiven him. Had he objected,
denying the dangers of such a
hunt by virtue of the animal's
inability to turn about and go
the other way--had he done this,
I say, I could have taken him
by the hand for the true sportsman
that he was. Not he. He sniffed,
looked on me, and sniffed again;
then gave my tobacco due praise,
thrust one foot into my lap,
and bade me examine the gear.
It was a MUCLUC of the Innuit
pattern, sewed together with
sinew threads, and devoid of
beads or furbelows. But it was
the skin itself that was remarkable.
In that it was all of half an
inch thick, it reminded me of
walrus-hide; but there the resemblance
ceased, for no walrus ever bore
so marvellous a growth of hair.
On the side and ankles this hair
was well-nigh worn away, what
of friction with underbrush and
snow; but around the top and
down the more sheltered back
it was coarse, dirty black, and
very thick. I parted it with
difficulty and looked beneath
for the fine fur that is common
with northern animals, but found
it in this case to be absent.
This, however, was compensated
for by the length. Indeed, the
tufts that had survived wear
and tear measured all of seven
or eight inches.
I looked up
into the man's face, and he
pulled his foot
down and asked, "Find hide like
that on your St Elias bear?"
I shook my
head. "Nor on any
other creature of land or sea," I
answered candidly. The thickness
of it, and the length of the
hair, puzzled me.
"That," he said, and said without
the slightest hint of impressiveness, "that
came from a mammoth."
"Nonsense!" I exclaimed, for
I could not forbear the protest
of my unbelief. "The mammoth,
my dear sir, long ago vanished
from the earth. We know it once
existed by the fossil remains
that we have unearthed, and by
a frozen carcase that the Siberian
sun saw fit to melt from out
the bosom of a glacier; but we
also know that no living specimen
exists. Our explorers--"
At this word
he broke in impatiently. "Your
explorers? Pish! A weakly breed.
Let us hear no more of them.
But tell me, O man, what you
may know of the mammoth and his
ways."
Beyond contradiction,
this was leading to a yarn;
so I baited
my hook by ransacking my memory
for whatever data I possessed
on the subject in hand. To begin
with, I emphasized that the animal
was prehistoric, and marshalled
all my facts in support of this.
I mentioned the Siberian sand-bars
that abounded with ancient mammoth
bones; spoke of the large quantities
of fossil ivory purchased from
the Innuits by the Alaska Commercial
Company; and acknowledged having
myself mined six- and eight-foot
tusks from the pay gravel of
the Klondike creeks. "All fossils," I
concluded, "found in the midst
of debris deposited through countless
ages."
"I remember when I was a kid," Thomas
Stevens sniffed (he had a most
confounded way of sniffing), "that
I saw a petrified water- melon.
Hence, though mistaken persons
sometimes delude themselves into
thinking that they are really
raising or eating them, there
are no such things as extant
water-melons?"
"But the question of food," I
objected, ignoring his point,
which was puerile and without
bearing. "The soil must bring
forth vegetable life in lavish
abundance to support so monstrous
creations. Nowhere in the North
is the soil so prolific. Ergo,
the mammoth cannot exist."
"I pardon your
ignorance concerning many matters
of this Northland,
for you are a young man and have
travelled little; but, at the
same time, I am inclined to agree
with you on one thing. The mammoth
no longer exists. How do I know?
I killed the last one with my
own right arm."
Thus spake Nimrod, the mighty
Hunter. I threw a stick of firewood
at the dogs and bade them quit
their unholy howling, and waited.
Undoubtedly this liar of singular
felicity would open his mouth
and requite me for my St. Elias
bear.
"It was this way," he at last
began, after the appropriate
silence had intervened. "I was
in camp one day--"
"Where?" I
interrupted.
He waved his
hand vaguely in the direction
of the north-east,
where stretched a TERRA INCOGNITA
into which vastness few men have
strayed and fewer emerged. "I
was in camp one day with Klooch.
Klooch was as handsome a little
KAMOOKS as ever whined betwixt
the traces or shoved nose into
a camp kettle. Her father was
a full- blood Malemute from Russian
Pastilik on Bering Sea, and I
bred her, and with understanding,
out of a clean-legged bitch of
the Hudson Bay stock. I tell
you, O man, she was a corker
combination. And now, on this
day I have in mind, she was brought
to pup through a pure wild wolf
of the woods--grey, and long
of limb, with big lungs and no
end of staying powers. Say! Was
there ever the like? It was a
new breed of dog I had started,
and I could look forward to big
things.
"As I have
said, she was brought neatly
to pup, and safely delivered.
I was squatting on my hams over
the litter--seven sturdy, blind
little beggars--when from behind
came a bray of trumpets and crash
of brass. There was a rush, like
the wind- squall that kicks the
heels of the rain, and I was
midway to my feet when knocked
flat on my face. At the same
instant I heard Klooch sigh,
very much as a man does when
you've planted your fist in his
belly. You can stake your sack
I lay quiet, but I twisted my
head around and saw a huge bulk
swaying above me. Then the blue
sky flashed into view and I got
to my feet. A hairy mountain
of flesh was just disappearing
in the underbrush on the edge
of the open. I caught a rear-end
glimpse, with a stiff tail, as
big in girth as my body, standing
out straight behind. The next
second only a tremendous hole
remained in the thicket, though
I could still hear the sounds
as of a tornado dying quickly
away, underbrush ripping and
tearing, and trees snapping and
crashing.
"I cast about
for my rifle. It had been lying
on the ground
with the muzzle against a log;
but now the stock was smashed,
the barrel out of line, and the
working-gear in a thousand bits.
Then I looked for the slut, and--and
what do you suppose?"
I shook my head.
"May my soul
burn in a thousand hells if
there was anything left
of her! Klooch, the seven sturdy,
blind little beggars--gone, all
gone. Where she had stretched
was a slimy, bloody depression
in the soft earth, all of a yard
in diameter, and around the edges
a few scattered hairs."
I measured three feet on the
snow, threw about it a circle,
and glanced at Nimrod.
"The beast was thirty long
and twenty high," he answered, "and
its tusks scaled over six times
three feet. I couldn't believe,
myself, at the time, for all
that it had just happened. But
if my senses had played me, there
was the broken gun and the hole
in the brush. And there was--or,
rather, there was not--Klooch
and the pups. O man, it makes
me hot all over now when I think
of it Klooch! Another Eve! The
mother of a new race! And a rampaging,
ranting, old bull mammoth, like
a second flood, wiping them,
root and branch, off the face
of the earth! Do you wonder that
the blood-soaked earth cried
out to high God? Or that I grabbed
the hand-axe and took the trail?"
"The hand-axe?" I exclaimed,
startled out of myself by the
picture. "The hand-axe, and a
big bull mammoth, thirty feet
long, twenty feet--"
Nimrod joined
me in my merriment, chuckling
gleefully. "Wouldn't
it kill you?" he cried. "Wasn't
it a beaver's dream? Many's the
time I've laughed about it since,
but at the time it was no laughing
matter, I was that danged mad,
what of the gun and Klooch. Think
of it, O man! A brand-new, unclassified,
uncopyrighted breed, and wiped
out before ever it opened its
eyes or took out its intention
papers! Well, so be it. Life's
full of disappointments, and
rightly so. Meat is best after
a famine, and a bed soft after
a hard trail.
"As I was saying,
I took out after the beast
with the hand-axe,
and hung to its heels down the
valley; but when he circled back
toward the head, I was left winded
at the lower end. Speaking of
grub, I might as well stop long
enough to explain a couple of
points. Up thereabouts, in the
midst of the mountains, is an
almighty curious formation. There
is no end of little valleys,
each like the other much as peas
in a pod, and all neatly tucked
away with straight, rocky walls
rising on all sides. And at the
lower ends are always small openings
where the drainage or glaciers
must have broken out. The only
way in is through these mouths,
and they are all small, and some
smaller than others. As to grub--you've
slushed around on the rain-soaked
islands of the Alaskan coast
down Sitka way, most likely,
seeing as you're a traveller.
And you know how stuff grows
there--big, and juicy, and jungly.
Well, that's the way it was with
those valleys. Thick, rich soil,
with ferns and grasses and such
things in patches higher than
your head. Rain three days out
of four during the summer months;
and food in them for a thousand
mammoths, to say nothing of small
game for man.
"But to get
back. Down at the lower end
of the valley I got
winded and gave over. I began
to speculate, for when my wind
left me my dander got hotter
and hotter, and I knew I'd never
know peace of mind till I dined
on roasted mammoth-foot. And
I knew, also, that that stood
for SKOOKUM MAMOOK PUKAPUK--excuse
Chinook, I mean there was a big
fight coming. Now the mouth of
my valley was very narrow, and
the walls steep. High up on one
side was one of those big pivot
rocks, or balancing rocks, as
some call them, weighing all
of a couple of hundred tons.
Just the thing. I hit back for
camp, keeping an eye open so
the bull couldn't slip past,
and got my ammunition. It wasn't
worth anything with the rifle
smashed; so I opened the shells,
planted the powder under the
rock, and touched it off with
slow fuse. Wasn't much of a charge,
but the old boulder tilted up
lazily and dropped down into
place, with just space enough
to let the creek drain nicely.
Now I had him."
"But how did you have him?" I
queried. "Who ever heard of a
man killing a mammoth with a
hand-axe? And, for that matter,
with anything else?"
"O man, have I not told you
I was mad?" Nimrod replied, with
a slight manifestation of sensitiveness. "Mad
clean through, what of Klooch
and the gun. Also, was I not
a hunter? And was this not new
and most unusual game? A hand-axe?
Pish! I did not need it. Listen,
and you shall hear of a hunt,
such as might have happened in
the youth of the world when cavemen
rounded up the kill with hand-axe
of stone. Such would have served
me as well. Now is it not a fact
that man can outwalk the dog
or horse? That he can wear them
out with the intelligence of
his endurance?"
I nodded.
"Well?"
The light broke in on me, and
I bade him continue.
"My valley
was perhaps five miles around.
The mouth was closed.
There was no way to get out.
A timid beast was that bull mammoth,
and I had him at my mercy. I
got on his heels again hollered
like a fiend, pelted him with
cobbles, and raced him around
the valley three times before
I knocked off for supper. Don't
you see? A race-course! A man
and a mammoth! A hippodrome,
with sun, moon, and stars to
referee!
"It took me
two months to do it, but I
did it. And that's
no beaver dream. Round and round
I ran him, me travelling on the
inner circle, eating jerked meat
and salmon berries on the run,
and snatching winks of sleep
between. Of course, he'd get
desperate at times and turn.
Then I'd head for soft ground
where the creek spread out, and
lay anathema upon him and his
ancestry, and dare him to come
on. But he was too wise to bog
in a mud puddle. Once he pinned
me in against the walls, and
I crawled back into a deep crevice
and waited. Whenever he felt
for me with his trunk, I'd belt
him with the hand-axe till he
pulled out, shrieking fit to
split my ear drums, he was that
mad. He knew he had me and didn't
have me, and it near drove him
wild. But he was no man's fool.
He knew he was safe as long as
I stayed in the crevice, and
he made up his mind to keep me
there. And he was dead right,
only he hadn't figured on the
commissary. There was neither
grub nor water around that spot,
so on the face of it he couldn't
keep up the siege. He'd stand
before the opening for hours,
keeping an eye on me and flapping
mosquitoes away with his big
blanket ears. Then the thirst
would come on him and he'd ramp
round and roar till the earth
shook, calling me every name
he could lay tongue to. This
was to frighten me, of course;
and when he thought I was sufficiently
impressed, he'd back away softly
and try to make a sneak for the
creek. Sometimes I'd let him
get almost there--only a couple
of hundred yards away it was--when
out I'd pop and back he'd come,
lumbering along like the old
landslide he was. After I'd done
this a few times, and he'd figured
it out, he changed his tactics.
Grasped the time element, you
see. Without a word of warning,
away he'd go, tearing for the
water like mad, scheming to get
there and back before I ran away.
Finally, after cursing me most
horribly, he raised the siege
and deliberately stalked off
to the water-hole.
"That was the
only time he penned me,--three
days of it,--but
after that the hippodrome never
stopped. Round, and round, and
round, like a six days' go-as-I-please,
for he never pleased. My clothes
went to rags and tatters, but
I never stopped to mend, till
at last I ran naked as a son
of earth, with nothing but the
old hand-axe in one hand and
a cobble in the other. In fact,
I never stopped, save for peeps
of sleep in the crannies and
ledges of the cliffs. As for
the bull, he got perceptibly
thinner and thinner--must have
lost several tons at least--and
as nervous as a schoolmarm on
the wrong side of matrimony.
When I'd come up with him and
yell, or lain him with a rock
at long range, he'd jump like
a skittish colt and tremble all
over. Then he'd pull out on the
run, tail and trunk waving stiff,
head over one shoulder and wicked
eyes blazing, and the way he'd
swear at me was something dreadful.
A most immoral beast he was,
a murderer, and a blasphemer.
"But towards
the end he quit all this, and
fell to whimpering
and crying like a baby. His spirit
broke and he became a quivering
jelly-mountain of misery. He'd
get attacks of palpitation of
the heart, and stagger around
like a drunken man, and fall
down and bark his shins. And
then he'd cry, but always on
the run. O man, the gods themselves
would have wept with him, and
you yourself or any other man.
It was pitiful, and there was
so I much of it, but I only hardened
my heart and hit up the pace.
At last I wore him clean out,
and he lay down, broken-winded,
broken-hearted, hungry, and thirsty.
When I found he wouldn't budge,
I hamstrung him, and spent the
better part of the day wading
into him with the hand-axe, he
a-sniffing and sobbing till I
worked in far enough to shut
him off. Thirty feet long he
was, and twenty high, and a man
could sling a hammock between
his tusks and sleep comfortably.
Barring the fact that I had run
most of the juices out of him,
he was fair eating, and his four
feet, alone, roasted whole, would
have lasted a man a twelvemonth.
I spent the winter there myself."
"And where is this valley?" I
asked
He waved his
hand in the direction of the
north-east, and said: "Your
tobacco is very good. I carry
a fair share of it in my pouch,
but I shall carry the recollection
of it until I die. In token of
my appreciation, and in return
for the moccasins on your own
feet, I will present to you these
muclucs. They commemorate Klooch
and the seven blind little beggars.
They are also souvenirs of an
unparalleled event in history,
namely, the destruction of the
oldest breed of animal on earth,
and the youngest. And their chief
virtue lies in that they will
never wear out."
Having effected the exchange,
he knocked the ashes from his
pipe, gripped my hand good-night,
and wandered off through the
snow. Concerning this tale, for
which I have already disclaimed
responsibility, I would recommend
those of little faith to make
a visit to the Smithsonian Institute.
If they bring the requisite credentials
and do not come in vacation time,
they will undoubtedly gain an
audience with Professor Dolvidson.
The muclucs are in his possession,
and he will verify, not the manner
in which they were obtained,
but the material of which they
are composed. When he states
that they are made from the skin
of the mammoth, the scientific
world accepts his verdict. What
more would you have?
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