The Faith of Men

Excerpt

A RELIC OF THE PLIOCENE

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 che-chaquas 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....