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And, greatest blessing of all, the flies and mosquitoes were rapidly abating their attacks, and the gaps in their ranks were increasing with every frosty night that passed. The fall tints in the woods were ablaze on every hand. The dark green of the pine woods kept the character of the northland weird.
Doubtless when the storm abated he saw his error, knew that he was walking toward the barren northland, turned at once and took the right course he so experienced, the woods his home from boyhood. But his food is nearly gone, the cold tortures him; with lowered head and clenched teeth he fights the implacable winter, calling to aid his every reserve of strength and high courage.
Then, too, not one of them but knew the cruel moods of the great Northland. A wonderful companionship existed between these men. It was something more than the companionship of the long trail.
But Kent possessed an unswerving passion to grip at facts in detail, a characteristic that had largely helped him to earn the reputation of being the best man-hunter in all the northland service. So he had insisted, and his surgeon friend had explained.
It brought back dear memories of glorious April mornings on Long Island, when through the singing of robin and song-sparrow comes the piercing cadence of the meadowlark; and of the far northland woods in June, fragrant with the breath of pine and balsam-fir, where sweetheart sparrows sing from wet spruce thickets and rapid brooks rush under the drenched and swaying alder- boughs.
Erik died in battle many years earlier, and Gunhild then went to Denmark with her sons. She was to make more trouble for Norway before she died. From the word vik, or bay, comes the word viking, long used to designate the sea-rovers of the Northland, the bold Norse wanderers who for centuries made their way to the rich lands of the south on plundering raids.
One by one, upon the rivers and lakes of the Northland, upon wide snow-steeps of the barren grounds, even to the shores of the frozen sea, you will be hunted and gathered in. Or you will be shot like dogs, and your bones left to crunch in the jaws of the wolf-pack. We are outlaws, all! Not a man of us will dare show his face in any post or settlement or city in all Canada."
The effects of all this are obvious, and no fitter illustration may be presented than the fact that to-day, in the matter of communication, the Klondike is virtually nearer to Boston than was Bunker Hill in the time of Warren. A contemporaneous and remarkable shrinkage of a vast stretch of territory may be instanced in the Northland.
There were so many and such marked changes: the quick, curt speech, caught in the Northland; the nervous, sure-footed stride, and the athletic swing of the shoulders; the easy manner and confident air, not of college-boy conceit, but of the assurance of young manhood; and, lastly, this blunt right-about-face in matters of religion.
No sooner had Wainamoinen heard this, than he made ready for a journey and started off for the dismal Northland. When he had travelled three days and was come to the borders of Pohjola, he found a wide river in the road and no boat to cross over in. So he built a huge fire on the shore, and soon such a dense column of smoke arose that Louhi sent some one to see what was the matter.
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