firelight, when she turn her head, so, and flashes come from it
like golden fire. The eyes are large and brown, sometimes warm
like a candle behind a curtain, sometimes very hard and bright like
broken ice when sun shines upon it. When she smile - how can I
say? - when she smile I know white man like to kiss her, just like
that, when she smile. She never do hard work. Her hands are soft,
like baby's hand. She is soft all over, like baby. She is not
thin, but round like baby; her arm, her leg, her muscles, all soft
and round like baby. Her waist is small, and when she stand up,
when she walk, or move her head or arm, it is - I do not know the
word - but it is nice to look at, like - maybe I say she is built
on lines like the lines of a good canoe, just like that, and when
she move she is like the movement of the good canoe sliding through
still water or leaping through water when it is white and fast and
angry. It is very good to see.
"Why does she come into Klondike, all alone, with plenty of money?
I do not know. Next day I ask her. She laugh and says: 'Sitka
Charley, that is none of your business. I give you one thousand
dollars take me to Dawson. That only is your business.' Next day
after that I ask her what is her name. She laugh, then she says,
'Mary Jones, that is my name.' I do not know her name, but I know
all the time that Mary Jones is not her name.
"It is very cold in canoe, and because of cold sometimes she not
feel good. Sometimes she feel good and she sing. Her voice is
like a silver bell, and I feel good all over like when I go into
church at Holy Cross Mission, and when she sing I feel strong and
paddle like hell. Then she laugh and says, 'You think we get to
Dawson before freeze-up, Charley?' Sometimes she sit in canoe and
is thinking far away, her eyes like that, all empty. She does not
see Sitka Charley, nor the ice, nor the snow. She is far away.
Very often she is like that, thinking far away. Sometimes, when
she is thinking far away, her face is not good to see. It looks
like a face that is angry, like the face of one man when he want to
kill another man.
"Last day to Dawson very bad. Shore-ice in all the eddies, mush-
ice in the stream. I cannot paddle. The canoe freeze to ice. I
cannot get to shore. There is much danger. All the time we go
down Yukon in the ice. That night there is much noise of ice.
Then ice stop, canoe stop, everything stop. 'Let us go to shore,'
the woman says. I say no, better wait. By and by, everything
start down-stream again. There is much snow. I cannot see. At
eleven o'clock at night, everything stop. At one o'clock
everything start again. At three o'clock everything stop. Canoe
is smashed like eggshell, but is on top of ice and cannot sink. I
hear dogs howling. We wait. We sleep. By and by morning come.
There is no more snow. It is the freeze-up, and there is Dawson.
Canoe smash and stop right at Dawson. Sitka Charley has come in
with two thousand letters on very last water.
"The woman rent a cabin on the hill, and for one week I see her no
more. Then, one day, she come to me. 'Charley,' she says, 'how do
you like to work for me? You drive dogs, make camp, travel with
me.' I say that I make too much money carrying letters. She says,
'Charley, I will pay you more money.' I tell her that pick-and-