This was startling
geographical information. The Hudson Bay post at Fort Yukon had other
notions concerning the course of the river, believing it to flow into the
Arctic.
"Then the Yukon empties into Bering Sea?" he asked.
"I do not know, but below there are Russians, many Russians. Which is
neither here nor there. You may go on and see for yourself; you may go
back to your brothers; but up the Koyukuk you shall not go while the
priests and fighting men do my bidding. Thus do I command, I, Baptiste
the Red, whose word is law and who am head man over this people."
"And should I not go down to the Russians, or back to my brothers?"
"Then shall you go swift-footed before your god, which is a bad god, and
the god of the white men."
The red sun shot up above the northern sky-line, dripping and bloody.
Baptiste the Red came to his feet, nodded curtly, and went back to his
camp amid the crimson shadows and the singing of the robins.
Hay Stockard finished his pipe by the fire, picturing in smoke and coal
the unknown upper reaches of the Koyukuk, the strange stream which ended
here its arctic travels and merged its waters with the muddy Yukon flood.
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