The
forgotten trails of boyhood came back to me. I sat by the full pots of
the _potlach_ feast, and raised my voice in song, and danced to the
chanting of the men and maidens and the booming of the walrus drums. And
Passuk held my hand and walked by my side. When I laid down to sleep,
she waked me. When I stumbled and fell, she raised me. When I wandered
in the deep snow, she led me back to the trail. And in this wise, like a
man bereft of reason, who sees strange visions and whose thoughts are
light with wine, I came to Haines Mission by the sea."
Sitka Charley threw back the tent-flaps. It was midday. To the south,
just clearing the bleak Henderson Divide, poised the cold-disked sun. On
either hand the sun-dogs blazed. The air was a gossamer of glittering
frost. In the foreground, beside the trail, a wolf-dog, bristling with
frost, thrust a long snout heavenward and mourned.
WHERE THE TRAIL FORKS
"Must I, then, must I, then, now leave this town--
And you, my love, stay here?"--_Schwabian Folk-song_.
The singer, clean-faced and cheery-eyed, bent over and added water to a
pot of simmering beans, and then, rising, a stick of firewood in hand,
drove back the circling dogs from the grub-box and cooking-gear.
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