The Story of Jees Uck
There have been renunciations and renunciations. But, in itsessence, renunciation is ever the same. And the paradox of it is,that men and women forego the dearest thing in the world forsomething dearer. It was never otherwise. Thus it was when Abelbrought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. Thefirstlings and the fat thereof were to him the dearest things inthe world; yet he gave them over that he might be on good termswith God. So it was with Abraham when he prepared to offer up hisson Isaac on a stone. Isaac was very dear to him; but God, inincomprehensible ways, was yet dearer. It may be that Abrahamfeared the Lord. But whether that be true or not it has since beendetermined by a few billion people that he loved the Lord anddesired to serve him.And since it has been determined that love is service, and since torenounce is to serve, then Jees Uck, who was merely a woman of aswart-skinned breed, loved with a great love. She was unversed inhistory, having learned to read only the signs of weather and ofgame; so she had never heard of Abel nor of Abraham; nor, havingescaped the good sisters at Holy Cross, had she been told the storyof Ruth, the Moabitess, who renounced her very God for the sake ofa stranger woman from a strange land. Jees Uck had learned onlyone way of renouncing, and that was with a club as the dynamicfactor, in much the same manner as a dog is made to renounce astolen marrow-bone. Yet, when the time came, she proved herselfcapable of rising to the height of the fair-faced royal races andof renouncing in right regal fashion.So this is the story of Jees Uck, which is also the story of NeilBonner, 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 notan Indian; nor was she an Eskimo; nor even an Innuit. Goingbackward into mouth tradition, there appears the figure of oneSkolkz, a Toyaat Indian of the Yukon, who journeyed down in hisyouth to the Great Delta where dwell the Innuits, and where heforegathered with a woman remembered as Olillie. Now the womanOlillie had been bred from an Eskimo mother by an Innuit man. Andfrom Skolkz and Olillie came Halie, who was one-half Toyaat Indian,one-quarter Innuit, and one-quarter Eskimo. And Halie was thegrandmother of Jees Uck.Now Halie, in whom three stocks had been bastardized, who cherishedno prejudice against further admixture, mated with a Russian furtrader 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, wherehe knew Zimba, who was a woman of the Deer People and who becamethe 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 wouldnot have become the grandfather of Jees Uck and there would be nostory at all. But he WAS captured by the Sea People, from whom heescaped to Kamchatka, and thence, on a Norwegian whale-ship, to theBaltic. Not long after that he turned up in St. Petersburg, andthe years were not many till he went drifting east over the sameweary road his father had measured with blood and groans a half-century before. But Shpack was a free man, in the employ of thegreat Russian Fur Company. And in that employ he fared farther andfarther east, until he crossed Bering Sea into Russian America; andat Pastolik, which is hard by the Great Delta of the Yukon, becamethe husband of Halie, who was the grandmother of Jees Uck. Out ofthis union came the woman-child, Tukesan.Shpack, under the orders of the Company, made a canoe voyage of afew hundred miles up the Yukon to the post of Nulato. With him hetook Halie and the babe Tukesan. This was in 1850, and in 1850 itwas that the river Indians fell upon Nulato and wiped it from theface of the earth. And that was the end of Shpack and Halie. Onthat terrible night Tukesan disappeared. To this day the Toyaatsaver they had no hand in the trouble; but, be that as it may, thefact remains that the babe Tukesan grew up among them.Tukesan was married successively to two Toyaat brothers, to both ofwhom she was barren. Because of this, other women shook theirheads, and no third Toyaat man could be found to dare matrimonywith the childless widow. But at this time, many hundred milesabove, at Fort Yukon, was a man, Spike O'Brien. Fort Yukon was aHudson Bay Company post, and Spike O'Brien one of the Company'sservants. He was a good servant, but he achieved an opinion thatthe service was bad, and in the course of time vindicated thatopinion by deserting. It was a year's journey, by the chain ofposts, back to York Factory on Hudson's Bay. Further, beingCompany posts, he knew he could not evade the Company's clutches.Nothing retained but to go down the Yukon. It was true no whiteman had ever gone down the Yukon, and no white man knew whether theYukon emptied into the Arctic Ocean or Bering Sea; but SpikeO'Brien was a Celt, and the promise of danger was a lure he hadever followed.A few weeks later, somewhat battered, rather famished, and aboutdead with river-fever, he drove the nose of his canoe into theearth bank by the village of the Toyaats and promptly fainted away.While getting his strength back, in the weeks that followed, helooked upon Tukesan and found her good. Like the father of Shpack,who lived to a ripe old age among the Siberian Deer People, SpikeO'Brien might have left his aged bones with the Toyaats. Butromance gripped his heart-strings and would not let him stay. Ashe had journeyed from York Factory to Fort Yukon, so, first amongmen, might he journey from Fort Yukon to the sea and win the honourof being the first man to make the North-West Passage by land. Sohe departed down the river, won the honour, and was unannaled andunsung. In after years he ran a sailors' boarding-house in SanFrancisco, where he became esteemed a most remarkable liar byvirtue of the gospel truths he told. But a child was born toTukesan, who had been childless. And this child was Jees Uck. Herlineage has been traced at length to show that she was neitherIndian, nor Eskimo, nor Innuit, nor much of anything else; also toshow what waifs of the generations we are, all of us, and thestrange meanderings of the seed from which we spring.What with the vagrant blood in her and the heritage compounded ofmany races, Jees Uck developed a wonderful young beauty. Bizarre,perhaps, it was, and Oriental enough to puzzle any passingethnologist. A lithe and slender grace characterized her. Beyonda quickened lilt to the imagination, the contribution of the Celtwas in no wise apparent. It might possibly have put the warm bloodunder her skin, which made her face less swart and her body fairer;but that, in turn, might have come from Shpack, the Big Fat, whoinherited the colour of his Slavonic father. And, finally, she hadgreat, blazing black eyes--the half-caste eye, round, full-orbed,and sensuous, which marks the collision of the dark races with thelight. Also, the white blood in her, combined with her knowledgethat it was in her, made her, in a way, ambitious. Otherwise byupbringing and in outlook on life, she was wholly and utterly aToyaat Indian.One winter, when she was a young woman, Neil Bonner came into herlife. 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 andcultivated roses, and a mother who loved the social round, NeilBonner had gone rather wild. He was not vicious, but a man withmeat in his belly and without work in the world has to expend hisenergy somehow, and Neil Bonner was such a man. And he expendedhis energy in such a fashion and to such extent that when theinevitable climax came, his father, Neil Bonner, senior, crawledout of his roses in a panic and looked on his son with a wonderingeye. Then he hied himself away to a crony of kindred pursuits,with whom he was wont to confer over coupons and roses, and betweenthe two the destiny of young Neil Bonner was made manifest. Hemust go away, on probation, to live down his harmless follies inorder that he might live up to their own excellent standard.This determined upon, and young Neil a little repentant and a greatdeal ashamed, the rest was easy. The cronies were heavystockholders in the P. C. Company. The P. C. Company owned fleetsof river-steamers and ocean-going craft, and, in addition tofarming the sea, exploited a hundred thousand square miles or so ofthe land that, on the maps of geographers, usually occupies thewhite 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 goodlike his father. "Five years of simplicity, close to the soil andfar from temptation, will make a man of him," said old Neil Bonner,and forthwith crawled back among his roses. Young Neil set hisjaw, pitched his chin at the proper angle, and went to work. As anunderling he did his work well and gained the commendation of hissuperiors. Not that he delighted in the work, but that it was theone thing that prevented him from going mad.The first year he wished he was dead. The second year he cursedGod. The third year he was divided between the two emotions, andin the confusion quarrelled with a man in authority. He had thebest of the quarrel, though the man in authority had the lastword,--a word that sent Neil Bonner into an exile that made his oldbillet appear as paradise. But he went without a whimper, for theNorth had succeeded in making him into a man.Here and there, on the white spaces on the map, little circletslike the letter "o" are to be found, and, appended to thesecirclets, on one side or the other, are names such as "FortHamilton," "Yanana Station," "Twenty Mile," thus leading one toimagine that the white spaces are plentifully besprinkled withtowns and villages. But it is a vain imagining. Twenty Mile,which is very like the rest of the posts, is a log building thesize 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 coupleof outhouses. The back yard is unfenced, and extends to theskyline and an unascertainable bit beyond. There are no otherhouses in sight, though the Toyaats sometimes pitch a winter camp amile or two down the Yukon. And this is Twenty Mile, one tentacleof the many-tentacled P. C. Company. Here the agent, with anassistant, barters with the Indians for their furs, and does anerratic trade on a gold-dust basis with the wandering miners.Here, also, the agent and his assistant yearn all winter for thespring, and when the spring comes, camp blasphemously on the roofwhile the Yukon washes out the establishment. And here, also, inthe fourth year of his sojourn in the land, came Neil Bonner totake charge.He had displaced no agent; for the man that previously ran the posthad made away with himself; "because of the rigours of the place,"said the assistant, who still remained; though the Toyaats, bytheir fires, had another version. The assistant was a shrunken-shouldered, hollow-chested man, with a cadaverous face andcavernous cheeks that his sparse black beard could not hide. Hecoughed much, as though consumption gripped his lungs, while hiseyes had that mad, fevered light common to consumptives in the laststage. Pentley was his name--Amos Pentley--and Bonner did not likehim, 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 silenceand darkness of the long winter.In the end, Bonner concluded that Amos was partly demented, andleft him alone, doing all the work himself except the cooking.Even then, Amos had nothing but bitter looks and an undisguisedhatred for him. This was a great loss to Bonner; for the smilingface of one of his own kind, the cheery word, the sympathy ofcomradeship shared with misfortune--these things meant much; andthe winter was yet young when he began to realize the addedreasons, with such an assistant, that the previous agent had foundto impel his own hand against his life.It was very lonely at Twenty Mile. The bleak vastness stretchedaway on every side to the horizon. The snow, which was reallyfrost, flung its mantle over the land and buried everything in thesilence of death. For days it was clear and cold, the thermometersteadily recording forty to fifty degrees below zero. Then achange came over the face of things. What little moisture hadoozed into the atmosphere gathered into dull grey, formless clouds;it became quite warm, the thermometer rising to twenty below; andthe moisture fell out of the sky in hard frost-granules that hissedlike dry sugar or driving sand when kicked underfoot. After thatit became clear and cold again, until enough moisture had gatheredto blanket the earth from the cold of outer space. That was all.Nothing happened. No storms, no churning waters and threshingforests, nothing but the machine-like precipitation of accumulatedmoisture. Possibly the most notable thing that occurred throughthe weary weeks was the gliding of the temperature up to theunprecedented height of fifteen below. To atone for this, outerspace smote the earth with its cold till the mercury froze and thespirit thermometer remained more than seventy below for afortnight, when it burst. There was no telling how much colder itwas after that. Another occurrence, monotonous in its regularity,was the lengthening of the nights, till day became a mere blink oflight between the darkness.Neil Bonner was a social animal. The very follies for which he wasdoing penance had been bred of his excessive sociability. Andhere, in the fourth year of his exile, he found himself in company--which were to travesty the word--with a morose and speechlesscreature in whose sombre eyes smouldered a hatred as bitter as itwas unwarranted. And Bonner, to whom speech and fellowship were asthe breath of life, went about as a ghost might go, tantalized bythe gregarious revelries of some former life. In the day his lipswere compressed, his face stern; but in the night he clenched hishands, rolled about in his blankets, and cried aloud like a littlechild. And he would remember a certain man in authority and cursehim through the long hours. Also, he cursed God. But Godunderstands. He cannot find it in his heart to blame weak mortalswho blaspheme in Alaska.And here, to the post of Twenty Mile, came Jees Uck, to trade forflour and bacon, and beads, and bright scarlet cloths for her fancywork. And further, and unwittingly, she came to the post of TwentyMile to make a lonely man more lonely, make him reach out emptyarms in his sleep. For Neil Bonner was only a man. When she firstcame into the store, he looked at her long, as a thirsty man maylook at a flowing well. And she, with the heritage bequeathed herby 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, hedid not see it, and fought against her as fiercely and passionatelyas he was drawn towards her. And she? She was Jees Uck, byupbringing wholly and utterly a Toyaat Indian woman.She came often to the post to trade. And often she sat by the bigwood stove and chatted in broken English with Neil Bonner. And hecame to look for her coming; and on the days she did not come hewas worried and restless. Sometimes he stopped to think, and thenshe was met coldly, with a resolve that perplexed and piqued her,and which, she was convinced, was not sincere. But more often hedid not dare to think, and then all went well and there were smilesand laughter. And Amos Pentley, gasping like a stranded catfish,his hollow cough a-reek with the grave, looked upon it all andgrinned. He, who loved life, could not live, and it rankled hissoul that others should be able to live. Wherefore he hatedBonner, who was so very much alive and into whose eyes sprang joyat the sight of Jees Uck. As for Amos, the very thought of thegirl was sufficient to send his blood pounding up into ahemorrhage.Jees Uck, whose mind was simple, who thought elementally and wasunused to weighing life in its subtler quantities, read AmosPentley like a book. She warned Bonner, openly and bluntly, in fewwords; but the complexities of higher existence confused thesituation to him, and he laughed at her evident anxiety. To him,Amos was a poor, miserable devil, tottering desperately into thegrave. And Bonner, who had suffered much, found it easy to forgivegreatly.But one morning, during a bitter snap, he got up from thebreakfast-table and went into the store. Jees Uck was alreadythere, rosy from the trail, to buy a sack of flour. A few minuteslater, he was out in the snow lashing the flour on her sled. As hebent over he noticed a stiffness in his neck and felt a premonitionof impending physical misfortune. And as he put the last half-hitch into the lashing and attempted to straighten up, a quickspasm seized him and he sank into the snow. Tense and quivering,head jerked back, limbs extended, back arched and mouth twisted anddistorted, he appeared as though being racked limb from limb.Without cry or sound, Jees Uck was in the snow beside him; but heclutched both her wrists spasmodically, and as long as theconvulsion endured she was helpless. In a few moments the spasmrelaxed and he was left weak and fainting, his forehead beaded withsweat, 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 enteredthe store the spasm seized him again, and his body writhedirresistibly 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 andcontinued to look on.Bonner's body went slack, the tense muscles easing down and anexpression of relief coming into his face. "Quick!" he grittedbetween his teeth, his mouth twisting with the on-coming of thenext 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 roombeyond the stove, and thither, by the legs, she dragged thestruggling man. As the spasm passed he began, very faint and verysick, to overhaul the chest. He had seen dogs die exhibitingsymptoms similar to his own, and he knew what should be done. Heheld up a vial of chloral hydrate, but his fingers were too weakand nerveless to draw the cork. This Jees Uck did for him, whilehe was plunged into another convulsion. As he came out of it hefound the open bottle proffered him, and looked into the greatblack eyes of the woman and read what men have always read in theMate-woman's eyes. Taking a full dose of the stuff, he sank backuntil another spasm had passed. Then he raised himself limply onhis elbow."Listen, Jees Uck!" he said very slowly, as though aware of thenecessity 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, butyou must not go away." His jaw began to set and his face to quiverand distort with the fore-running pangs, but he gulped andstruggled to master them. "Do not got away. And do not let Amosgo away. Understand! Amos must stay right here."She nodded her head, and he passed off into the first of manyconvulsions, which gradually diminished in force and frequency.Jees Uck hung over him remembering his injunction and not daring totouch him. Once Amos grew restless and made as though to go intothe kitchen; but a quick blaze from her eyes quelled him, and afterthat, save for his laboured breathing and charnel cough, he wasvery quiet.Bonner slept. The blink of light that marked the day disappeared.Amos, followed about by the woman's eyes, lighted the kerosenelamps. Evening came on. Through the north window the heavens wereemblazoned with an auroral display, which flamed and flared anddied down into blackness. Some time after that, Neil Bonnerroused. First he looked to see that Amos was still there, thensmiled at Jees Uck and pulled himself up. Every muscle was stiffand sore, and he smiled ruefully, pressing and prodding himself asif to ascertain the extent of the ravage. Then his face went sternand businesslike."Jees Uck," he said, "take a candle. Go into the kitchen. Thereis food on the table--biscuits and beans and bacon; also, coffee inthe pot on the stove. Bring it here on the counter. Also, bringtumblers and water and whisky, which you will find on the top shelfof the locker. Do not forget the whisky."Having swallowed a stiff glass of the whisky, he went carefullythrough the medicine chest, now and again putting aside, withdefinite purpose, certain bottles and vials. Then he set to workon the food, attempting a crude analysis. He had not been unusedto the laboratory in his college days and was possessed ofsufficient imagination to achieve results with his limitedmaterials. The condition of tetanus, which had marked hisparoxysms, simplified matters, and he made but one test. Thecoffee yielded nothing; nor did the beans. To the biscuits hedevoted the utmost care. Amos, who knew nothing of chemistry,looked on with steady curiosity. But Jees Uck, who had boundlessfaith in the white man's wisdom, and especially in Neil Bonner'swisdom, and who not only knew nothing but knew that she knewnothing watched his face rather than his hands.Step by step he eliminated possibilities, until he came to thefinal test. He was using a thin medicine vial for a tube, and thishe held between him and the light, watching the slow precipitationof a salt through the solution contained in the tube. He saidnothing, but he saw what he had expected to see. And Jees Uck, hereyes riveted on his face, saw something too,--something that madeher spring like a tigress upon Amos, and with splendid supplenessand strength bend his body back across her knee. Her knife was outof its sheaf and uplifted, glinting in the lamplight. Amos wassnarling; 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 onher face; and his body thudded to the floor. Bonner nudged himwith his moccasined foot."Get up, Amos!" he commanded. "You've got to pack an outfit yetto-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 theCompany believes he killed himself. You used strychnine in mycase. 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 forthe pair of us, and you've got to mush. It's two hundred miles toHoly 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 asif you were in jail, for you can't get out of the country. AndI'll give you one chance. You're almost dead. Very well. I shallsend no word to the Company until the spring. In the meantime, thething for you to do is to die. Now MUSH!""You go to bed!" Jees Uck insisted, when Amos had churned away intothe night towards Holy Cross. "You sick man yet, Neil.""And you're a good girl, Jees Uck," he answered. "And here's myhand 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 onthe land. Neil Bonner discovered that he had failed to put propervaluation upon even the sullen face of the murderous and death-stricken Amos. It became very lonely at Twenty Mile. "For thelove of God, Prentiss, send me a man," he wrote to the agent atFort Hamilton, three hundred miles up river. Six weeks later theIndian 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 countryon the flanks of a caribou herd, and Jees Uck was with them.Removing to a distance seemed to bring her closer than ever, andNeil Bonner found himself picturing her, day by day, in camp and ontrail. It is not good to be alone. Often he went out of the quietstore, bare-headed and frantic, and shook his fist at the blink ofday that came over the southern sky-line. And on still, coldnights he left his bed and stumbled into the frost, where heassaulted the silence at the top of his lungs, as though it weresome tangible, sentiment thing that he might arouse; or he shoutedat the sleeping dogs till they howled and howled again. One shaggybrute he brought into the post, playing that it was the new mansent by Prentiss. He strove to make it sleep decently underblankets at nights and to sit at table and eat as a man should; butthe beast, mere domesticated wolf that it was, rebelled, and soughtout dark corners and snarled and bit him in the leg, and wasfinally beaten and driven forth.Then the trick of personification seized upon Neil Bonner andmastered him. All the forces of his environment metamorphosed intoliving, breathing entities and came to live with him. He recreatedthe primitive pantheon; reared an altar to the sun and burnedcandle fat and bacon grease thereon; and in the unfenced yard, bythe long-legged cache, made a frost devil, which he was wont tomake 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 inplay, and repeated it over and over to make sure, unaware thatmadness is ever prone to express itself in make-believe and play.One midwinter day, Father Champreau, a Jesuit missionary, pulledinto Twenty Mile. Bonner fell upon him and dragged him into thepost, and clung to him and wept, until the priest wept with himfrom sheer compassion. Then Bonner became madly hilarious and madelavish entertainment, swearing valiantly that his guest should notdepart. But Father Champreau was pressing to Salt Water on urgentbusiness for his order, and pulled out next morning, with Bonner'sblood threatened on his head.And the threat was in a fair way toward realization, when theToyaats returned from their long hunt to the winter camp. They hadmany furs, and there was much trading and stir at Twenty Mile.Also, Jees Uck came to buy beads and scarlet cloths and things, andBonner began to find himself again. He fought for a week againsther. Then the end came one night when she rose to leave. She hadnot forgotten her repulse, and the pride that drove Spike O'Brienon 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, andkissed her on the lips. The Toyaats had never taught her themeaning of a kiss upon the lips, but she understood and was glad.With the coming of Jees Uck, at once things brightened up. She wasregal in her happiness, a source of unending delight. Theelemental workings of her mind and her naive little ways made animmense sum of pleasurable surprise to the over-civilized man thathad stooped to catch her up. Not alone was she solace to hisloneliness, but her primitiveness rejuvenated his jaded mind. Itwas as though, after long wandering, he had returned to pillow hishead in the lap of Mother Earth. In short, in Jees Uck he foundthe 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 seeovermuch of each other, there arrived at Twenty Mile one SandyMacPherson, as companionable a man as ever whistled along the trailor raised a ballad by a camp-fire. A Jesuit priest had run intohis camp, a couple of hundred miles up the Yukon, in the nick oftime to say a last word over the body of Sandy's partner. And ondeparting, the priest had said, "My son, you will be lonely now."And Sandy had bowed his head brokenly. "At Twenty Mile," thepriest 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 tothe man and woman that resided there. He took Bonner moose-huntingand wolf-trapping; and, in return, Bonner resurrected a batteredand way-worn volume and made him friends with Shakespeare, tillSandy declaimed iambic pentameters to his sled-dogs whenever theywaxed mutinous. And of the long evenings they played cribbage andtalked and disagreed about the universe, the while Jees Uck rockedmatronly in an easy-chair and darned their moccasins and socks.Spring came. The sun shot up out of the south. The land exchangedits austere robes for the garb of a smiling wanton. Everywherelight laughed and life invited. The days stretched out their balmylength and the nights passed from blinks of darkness to no darknessat all. The river bared its bosom, and snorting steamboatschallenged the wilderness. There were stir and bustle, new faces,and fresh facts. An assistant arrived at Twenty Mile, and SandyMacPherson wandered off with a bunch of prospectors to invade theKoyokuk country. And there were newspapers and magazines andletters for Neil Bonner. And Jees Uck looked on in worriment, forshe knew his kindred talked with him across the world.Without much shock, it came to him that his father was dead. Therewas a sweet letter of forgiveness, dictated in his last hours.There were official letters from the Company, graciously orderinghim to turn the post over to the assistant and permitting him todepart at his earliest pleasure. A long, legal affair from thelawyers informed him of interminable lists of stocks and bonds,real estate, rents, and chattels that were his by his father'swill. 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 Bellecoughed in to the bank on her way down to Bering Sea, he departed--departed with the ancient lie of quick return young and blithe onhis lips."I'll come back, dear Jees Uck, before the first snow flies," hepromised her, between the last kisses at the gang-plank.And not only did he promise, but, like the majority of men underthe same circumstances, he really meant it. To John Thompson, thenew agent, he gave orders for the extension of unlimited credit tohis wife, Jees Uck. Also, with his last look from the deck of theYukon Belle, he saw a dozen men at work rearing the logs that wereto make the most comfortable house along a thousand miles of riverfront--the house of Jees Uck, and likewise the house of NeilBonner--ere the first flurry of snow. For he fully and fondlymeant to come back. Jees Uck was dear to him, and, further, agolden future awaited the north. With his father's money heintended to verify that future. An ambitious dream allured him.With his four years of experience, and aided by the friendlycooperation of the P. C. Company, he would return to become theRhodes 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 hehad never known, and comforted his mother, whom he had forgotten.There was much ado when Neil Bonner came back from the Arctic. Thefires were lighted and the fleshpots slung, and he took of it alland called it good. Not only was he bronzed and creased, but hewas a new man under his skin, with a grip on things and aseriousness and control. His old companions were amazed when hedeclined to hit up the pace in the good old way, while his father'scrony rubbed hands gleefully, and became an authority upon thereclamation of wayward and idle youth.For four years Neil Bonner's mind had lain fallow. Little that wasnew had been added to it, but it had undergone a process ofselection. It had, so to say, been purged of the trivial andsuperfluous. He had lived quick years, down in the world; and, upin the wilds, time had been given him to organize the confused massof his experiences. His superficial standards had been flung tothe winds and new standards erected on deeper and broadergeneralizations. Concerning civilization, he had gone away withone set of values, had returned with another set of values. Aided,also, by the earth smells in his nostrils and the earth sights inhis eyes, he laid hold of the inner significance of civilization,beholding with clear vision its futilities and powers. It was asimple little philosophy he evolved. Clean living was the way tograce. Duty performed was sanctification. One must live clean anddo his duty in order that he might work. Work was salvation. Andto work toward life abundant, and more abundant, was to be in linewith the scheme of things and the will of God.Primarily, he was of the city. And his fresh earth grip and virileconception of humanity gave him a finer sense of civilization andendeared civilization to him. Day by day the people of the cityclung closer to him and the world loomed more colossal. And, dayby day, Alaska grew more remote and less real. And then he metKitty Sharon--a woman of his own flesh and blood and kind; a womanwho put her hand into his hand and drew him to her, till he forgotthe day and hour and the time of the year the first snow flies onthe Yukon.Jees Uck moved into her grand log-house and dreamed away threegolden summer months. Then came the autumn, post-haste before thedown rush of winter. The air grew thin and sharp, the days thinand short. The river ran sluggishly, and skin ice formed in thequiet eddies. All migratory life departed south, and silence fellupon the land. The first snow flurries came, and the last homingsteamboat bucked desperately into the running mush ice. Then camethe hard ice, solid cakes and sheets, till the Yukon ran level withits banks. And when all this ceased the river stood still and theblinking days lost themselves in the darkness.John Thompson, the new agent, laughed; but Jees Uck had faith inthe mischances of sea and river. Neil Bonner might be frozen inanywhere between Chilkoot Pass and St. Michael's, for the lasttravellers of the year are always caught by the ice, when theyexchange boat for sled and dash on through the long hours behindthe flying dogs.But no flying dogs came up the trail, nor down the trail, to TwentyMile. And John Thompson told Jees Uck, with a certain gladness illconcealed, that Bonner would never come back again. Also, andbrutally, he suggested his own eligibility. Jees Uck laughed inhis face and went back to her grand log-house. But when midwintercame, when hope dies down and life is at its lowest ebb, Jees Uckfound 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 hisdoor and looked up at Jees Uck's house and waited. And hecontinued to wait. She sold her dog-team to a party of miners andpaid cash for her food. And when Thompson refused to honour evenher coin, Toyaat Indians made her purchases, and sledded them up toher house in the dark.In February the first post came in over the ice, and John Thompsonread in the society column of a five-months-old paper of themarriage of Neil Bonner and Kitty Sharon. Jees Uck held the doorajar and him outside while he imparted the information; and, whenhe had done, laughed pridefully and did not believe. In March, andall alone, she gave birth to a man-child, a brave bit of new lifeat which she marvelled. And at that hour, a year later, NeilBonner sat by another bed, marvelling at another bit of new lifethat 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 moneyfrom the being spent, Jees Uck went back to her own people. OcheIsh, a shrewd hunter, proposed to kill the meat for her and herbabe, and catch the salmon, if she would marry him. And Imego andHah Yo and Wy Nooch, husky young hunters all, made similarproposals. But she elected to live alone and seek her own meat andfish. She sewed moccasins and PARKAS and mittens--warm,serviceable things, and pleasing to the eye, withal, what of theornamental hair-tufts and bead-work. These she sold to the miners,who were drifting faster into the land each year. And not only didshe 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. Theservants of the Company wondered at the remarkable woman with theremarkable child, though they asked no questions and she vouchsafednothing. But just before Bering Sea closed in for the year, shebought a passage south on a strayed sealing schooner. That wintershe cooked for Captain Markheim's household at Unalaska, and in thespring continued south to Sitka on a whisky sloop. Later onappeared at Metlakahtla, which is near to St. Mary's on the end ofthe Pan-Handle, where she worked in the cannery through the salmonseason. When autumn came and the Siwash fishermen prepared toreturn to Puget Sound, she embarked with a couple of families in abig cedar canoe; and with them she threaded the hazardous chaos ofthe Alaskan and Canadian coasts, till the Straits of Juan de Fucawere passed and she led her boy by the hand up the hard pave ofSeattle.There she met Sandy MacPherson, on a windy corner, very muchsurprised and, when he had heard her story, very wroth--not sowroth as he might have been, had he known of Kitty Sharon; but ofher Jees Uck breathed not a word, for she had never believed.Sandy, who read commonplace and sordid desertion into thecircumstance, strove to dissuade her from her trip to SanFrancisco, where Neil Bonner was supposed to live when he was athome. And, having striven, he made her comfortable, bought hertickets and saw her off, the while smiling in her face andmuttering "dam-shame" into his beard.With roar and rumble, through daylight and dark, swaying andlurching between the dawns, soaring into the winter snows andsinking to summer valleys, skirting depths, leaping chasms,piercing mountains, Jees Uck and her boy were hurled south. Butshe had no fear of the iron stallion; nor was she stunned by thismasterful civilization of Neil Bonner's people. It seemed, rather,that she saw with greater clearness the wonder that a man of suchgodlike race had held her in his arms. The screaming medley of SanFrancisco, with its restless shipping, belching factories, andthundering traffic, did not confuse her; instead, she comprehendedswiftly the pitiful sordidness of Twenty Mile and the skin-lodgedToyaat village. And she looked down at the boy that clutched herhand and wondered that she had borne him by such a man.She paid the hack-driver five pieces and went up the stone steps ofNeil Bonner's front door. A slant-eyed Japanese parleyed with herfor a fruitless space, then led her inside and disappeared. Sheremained in the hall, which to her simply fancy seemed to be theguest-room--the show-place wherein were arrayed all the householdtreasures with the frank purpose of parade and dazzlement. Thewalls and ceiling were of oiled and panelled redwood. The floorwas more glassy than glare-ice, and she sought standing place onone of the great skins that gave a sense of security to thepolished surface. A huge fireplace--an extravagant fireplace, shedeemed it--yawned in the farther wall. A flood of light, mellowedby stained glass, fell across the room, and from the far end camethe white gleam of a marble figure.This much she saw, and more, when the slant-eyed servant led theway past another room--of which she caught a fleeting glance--andinto a third, both of which dimmed the brave show of the entrancehall. And to her eyes the great house seemed to hold out thepromise of endless similar rooms. There was such length andbreadth to them, and the ceilings were so far away! For the firsttime since her advent into the white man's civilization, a feelingof 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 wasbeautiful, all this that she saw, and it pleased her; but she felt,also, the wisdom and mastery behind. It was the concreteexpression of power in terms of beauty, and it was the power thatshe unerringly divined.And then came a woman, queenly tall, crowned with a glory of hairthat was like a golden sun. She seemed to come toward Jees Uck asa ripple of music across still water; her sweeping garment itself asong, her body playing rhythmically beneath. Jees Uck herself wasa man compeller. There were Oche Ish and Imego and Hah Yo and WyNooch, to say nothing of Neil Bonner and John Thompson and otherwhite men that had looked upon her and felt her power. But shegazed upon the wide blue eyes and rose-white skin of this womanthat advanced to meet her, and she measured her with woman's eyeslooking through man's eyes; and as a man compeller she felt herselfdiminish and grow insignificant before this radiant and flashingcreature."You wish to see my husband?" the woman asked; and Jees Uck gaspedat the liquid silver of a voice that had never sounded harsh criesat snarling wolf-dogs, nor moulded itself to a guttural speech, nortoughened in storm and frost and camp smoke."No," Jees Uck answered slowly and gropingly, in order that shemight 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 Februaryday, when she laughed pridefully and shut the door in his face. Asonce she had thrown Amos Pentley across her knee and ripped herknife into the air, so now she felt impelled to spring upon thiswoman and bear her back and down, and tear the life out of her fairbody. But Jees Uck was thinking quickly and gave no sign, andKitty Bonner little dreamed how intimately she had for an instantbeen related with sudden death.Jees Uck nodded her head that she understood, and Kitty Bonnerexplained that Neil was expected at any moment. Then they sat downon ridiculously comfortable chairs, and Kitty sought to entertainher 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 Englishabruptly 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 inthe talk of mothers and drank tea from cups so fragile that JeesUck feared lest hers should crumble to pieces beneath her fingers.Never had she seen such cups, so delicate and dainty. In her mindshe compared them with the woman who poured the tea, and thereuprose in contrast the gourds and pannikins of the Toyaat villageand 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 fittedto bear and upbring Neil Bonner's children. Just as his peopleexceeded her people, so did his womankind exceed her. They werethe man compellers, as their men were the world compellers. Shelooked at the rose-white tenderness of Kitty Bonner's skin andremembered the sun-beat on her own face. Likewise she looked frombrown hand to white--the one, work-worn and hardened by whip-handleand paddle, the other as guiltless of toil and soft as a newbornbabe's. And, for all the obvious softness and apparent weakness,Jees Uck looked into the blue eyes and saw the mastery she had seenin 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 saidit calmly, with even a ring of joyful cordiality, coming over toher and shaking both her hands, but looking into her eyes with aworry in his own that she understood."Hello, Neil!" she said. "You look much good.""Fine, fine, Jees Uck," he answered heartily, though secretlystudying Kitty for some sign of what had passed between the two.Yet he knew his wife too well to expect, even though the worst hadpassed, such a sign."Well, I can't say how glad I am to see you," he went on. "What'shappened? Did you strike a mine? And when did you get in?""Oo-a, I get in to-day," she replied, her voice instinctivelyseeking its guttural parts. "I no strike it, Neil. You knownCap'n Markheim, Unalaska? I cook, his house, long time. No spendmoney. Bime-by, plenty. Pretty good, I think, go down and seeWhite Man's Land. Very fine, White Man's Land, very fine," sheadded. 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 wasguileless, stolidly guileless, giving no cue. Kitty's untroubledbrow likewise baffled him. What had happened? How much had beensaid? and how much guessed?While he wrestled with these questions and while Jees Uck wrestledwith her problem--never had he looked so wonderful and great--asilence 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 hadborne him, and his eyes followed hers mechanically to the windowwhere played the two children. An iron hand seemed to tightenacross his forehead. His knees went weak and his heart leaped upand pounded like a fist against his breast. His boy! He had neverdreamed it!Little Kitty Bonner, fairylike in gauzy lawn, with pinkest ofcheeks and bluest of dancing eyes, arms outstretched and lipspuckered 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 andrough work, coolly withstood her advances, his body straight andstiff with the peculiar erectness common to children of savagepeople. A stranger in a strange land, unabashed and unafraid, heappeared more like an untamed animal, silent and watchful, hisblack eyes flashing from face to face, quiet so long as quietendured, but prepared to spring and fight and tear and scratch forlife, 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 wasof the generations of Shpack, Spike O'Brien, and Bonner. In hisfeatures, clean cut as a cameo and almost classic in theirseverity, there were the power and achievement of his father, andhis grandfather, and the one known as the Big Fat, who was capturedby the Sea people and escaped to Kamchatka.Neil Bonner fought his emotion down, swallowed it down, and chokedover it, though his face smiled with good-humour and the joy withwhich 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 hisin this our world."Kitty nodded concurrence. "What is your name?" she asked.The young savage flashed his quick eyes upon her and dwelt over herfor a space, seeking out, as it were, the motive beneath thequestion."Neil," he answered deliberately when the scrutiny had satisfiedhim."Injun talk," Jees Uck interposed, glibly manufacturing languageson the spur of the moment. "Him Injun talk, NEE-AL all the same'cracker.' Him baby, him like cracker; him cry for cracker. Himsay, 'NEE-AL, NEE-AL,' all time him say, 'NEE-AL.' Then I say thatum name. So um name all time Nee-al."Never did sound more blessed fall upon Neil Bonner's ear than thatlie from Jees Uck's lips. It was the cue, and he knew there wasreason 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 todreary Twenty Mile and the man alone in the silence with histhoughts.And here might well end the story of Jees Uck but for the crown sheput upon her renunciation. When she returned to the North to dwellin her grand log-house, John Thompson found that the P. C. Companycould make a shift somehow to carry on its business without hisaid. Also, the new agent and the succeeding agents receivedinstructions that the woman Jees Uck should be given whatsoevergoods and grub she desired, in whatsoever quantities she ordered,and that no charge should be placed upon the books. Further, theCompany paid yearly to the woman Jees Uck a pension of fivethousand dollars.When he had attained suitable age, Father Champreau laid hands uponthe boy, and the time was not long when Jees Uck received lettersregularly from the Jesuit college in Maryland. Later on theseletters came from Italy, and still later from France. And in theend there returned to Alaska one Father Neil, a man mighty for goodin the land, who loved his mother and who ultimately went into awider field and rose to high authority in the order.Jees Uck was a young woman when she went back into the North, andmen still looked upon her and yearned. But she lived straight, andno breath was ever raised save in commendation. She stayed for awhile with the good sisters at Holy Cross, where she learned toread and write and became versed in practical medicine and surgery.After that she returned to her grand log-house and gathered abouther the young girls of the Toyaat village, to show them the way oftheir feet in the world. It is neither Protestant nor Catholic,this school in the house built by Neil Bonner for Jees Uck, hiswife; but the missionaries of all the sects look upon it with equalfavour. The latchstring is always out, and tired prospectors andtrail-weary men turn aside from the flowing river or frozen trailto rest there for a space and be warm by her fire. And, down inthe States, Kitty Bonner is pleased at the interest her husbandtakes in Alaskan education and the large sums he devotes to thatpurpose; and, though she often smiles and chaffs, deep down andsecretly she is but the prouder of him.
zpostcode
Recruit
weather
mreligion
Yellowpages
sport
constellation
shopping
name
game
directory
literature
Word
tour
furnish
Lottery
tftnews
lyrics
News
digital
car
dir
Edu
Finance
