United States or Australia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Nor did I dream the world was so large until you stole me from my people and I cooked and carried for you on the endless trails." She looked up at him suddenly. "Tell me, Canim, does this trail ever end?" "Nay," he answered. "My trail is like the world; it never ends. My trail is the world, and I have travelled it since the time my legs could carry me, and I shall travel it until I die.
It was a sickness, I believe, like the falling-sickness that comes to old men; and in time I grew better and dreamed no more. And now ... I cannot remember" she brought her hand in a confused manner to her forehead "they are there, somewhere, but I cannot find them, only ..." "Only," Canim repeated, holding her. "Only one thing. But you will laugh at its foolishness, it is so unreal."
The mile tramp and the pitching of camp by the edge of the stream seemed like a passage in a nightmare. She cooked the meat, fed the dogs, and unlashed the packs as in a dream, and it was not until Canim began to sketch his next wandering that she became herself again. "The Klondike runs into the Yukon," he was saying; "a mighty river, mightier than the Mackenzie, of which you know.
Li Wan was appalled at the tremendous upheaval. "Truly, these men are mad," she said to Canim. "Small wonder. The gold they dig after is a great thing," he replied. "It is the greatest thing in the world." For hours they threaded the chaos of greed, Canim eagerly intent, Li Wan weak and listless.
My father and my mother may be dead, but it is long since I looked upon them, and I do not care. My tribe is like your tribe. It stays in the one place which is far from here, but I care naught for my tribe, for I am Canim, the Canoe!" "And must I, Li Wan, who am weary, travel always your trail until I die?" "You, Li Wan, are my wife, and the wife travels the husband's trail wheresoever it goes.
The tears coursed down her cheeks as she yearned toward them, and the break in her voice carried the sorrow she could not utter. But Miss Giddings was trembling, and even Mrs. Van Wyck was disturbed. "I would live as you live. Thy ways are my ways, and our ways be one. My husband is Canim, the Canoe, and he is big and strange, and I am afraid.
Her heart had not gone up a beat, and the incident was already old, for this was the routine of life. Canim had not stirred during the disorder, but instead had set up a lusty snoring. "Come, Canim!" she called. "The heat of the day is gone, and the trail waits for our feet." The squirrel-skin robe was agitated and cast aside by a brown arm. Then the man's eyelids fluttered and drooped again.
But Bash was aggrieved and truculent, and could not forbear to whimper and snarl as he was forced to receive the burden. He bristled his back and bared his teeth as she drew the straps tight, the while throwing all the malignancy of his nature into the glances shot at her sideways and backward. And Canim chuckled and said, "Did I not say he was once a very great warrior?"
I do firmly believe he was once a warrior." Canim tossed a bone to the brute and got upon his feet. "Come, let us begone. The sun is yet hot, but it will get no cooler." "And these white people, what are they like?" Li Wan made bold to ask. "Like you and me," he answered, "only they are less dark of skin. You will be among them ere the day is dead."
He was washing gravel in a large pan, with a circular, tilting movement; and as they looked, giving a deft flirt, he flashed up the yellow gold in a broad streak across the bottom of the pan. "Very rich, this creek," Canim told her, as they went on. "Sometime I will find such a creek, and then I shall be a big man."
Word Of The Day