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Updated: June 18, 2025
El-Soo signed the document, and Porportuk folded it and put it away in his pouch. Suddenly his eyes flashed, and in sudden speech he addressed El-Soo. "But it was not your father's debt," he said, "What I paid was the price for you. Your sale is business of to-day and not of last year and the years before.
All dwellers on the Yukon bank for twice a thousand miles knew the large log house, the old man and the tending slaves; and well did the Sisters know the house, its unending revelry, its feasting and its fun. So there was weeping at Holy Cross when El-Soo departed. There was a great cleaning up in the large house when El-Soo arrived.
Porportuk continued grudgingly to advance money, and ever the money flowed in golden foam away. Upon one thing El-Soo was resolved her father should die as he had lived. There should be for him no passing from high to low, no diminution of the revels, no lessening of the lavish hospitality. When there was famine, as of old, the Indians came groaning to the large house and went away content.
"My father wanders in the thick and endless forests," said El-Soo. "And there will he wander, with the lost souls crying, till the debt be paid. Then, and not until then, may he go on to the house of the Great Father." "And you believe this?" Sister Alberta asked. "I do not know," El-Soo made answer. "It was my father's belief." Sister Alberta shrugged her shoulders incredulously.
"We will go south before the winter catches us. We will go to the sunlands where there is no snow. But we will return. I have seen much of the world, and there is no land like Alaska, no sun like our sun, and the snow is good after the long summer." "And you will learn to read," said El-Soo. And Akoon said, "I will surely learn to read." But there was delay when they reached the Mackenzie.
El-Soo thrust the scoop into the heap, and with a sudden turn whirled the contents out and down to the Yukon in a golden shower. Porportuk seized her wrist as she thrust the scoop a second time into the heap. "It is mine," she said calmly. Porportuk released his grip, but he gritted his teeth and scowled darkly as she continued to scoop the gold into the river till none was left.
You are like a deer, El-Soo; you are like a deer, and your eyes are like deer's eyes, sometimes when you look at me, or when you hear a quick sound and wonder if it be danger that stirs. Your eyes are like a deer's eyes now as you look at me." And El-Soo, luminous and melting, bent and kissed Akoon. "When we reach the Mackenzie, we will not delay," Akoon said later.
Yet am I no longer young, nor am I minded to run these old legs of mine through all the years that remain to me. El-Soo can run fast and well. She is a deer. This I know, for I have seen and run after her. It is not good that a wife should run so fast. I paid for her a heavy price, yet does she run away from me. Akoon paid no price at all, yet does she run to him.
"Is it true talk?" he asked each of Porportuk's six young men. And each answered that it was true. "Is it true talk?" he asked El-Soo, and she answered, "It is true." "But Porportuk has not told that he is an old man," Akoon said, "and that he has daughters older than El-Soo." "It is true, Porportuk is an old man," said El-Soo.
He hunted some and fished some, but never far from Tana-naw Station, and he was at the large house often and long. And El-Soo measured him against many men and found him good. He sang songs to her, and was ardent and glowed until all Tana- naw Station knew he loved her. And Porportuk but grinned and advanced more money for the upkeep of the large house. Then came the death table of Klakee-Nah.
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