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Updated: June 1, 2025
He looked out into it, east and west to the dark rims of forest, north and south over the distance of that diamond-sprinkled tundra of unbroken white. He drew out his pipe, loaded it with tobacco, and began to smoke. The bitterness of the weed was gone. It was delicious. He puffed luxuriously. And then, suddenly, as he looked at the purplish bulwarks of the forest, his mind swept back.
But all the same, Little White Fox loved him. If you had asked him why he loved the big reindeer, he would probably have told you that, for one thing, Tdariuk, in spite of his huge body, was very gentle and kind. None of the little animals of the tundra was afraid of him. Little Mrs. Ptarmigan calmly hunted for dry blueberries and weed seed right beside him while he cropped his moss.
"The paper ran thus: 'We, the undersigned citizens of the United States, have discovered placer gold in the ground hereinafter described, and hereby claim for placer-mining purposes twenty acres on the tundra west of Nome and 100 feet north of the cemetery. Then followed the distance between stakes, the name of the witness, our own names, and that of Leroy as our agent, the date of the location, etc.
Botanists pointed out that Cynodon dactylon, despite its ability to sheathe itself against a chill, had never flourished in cold areas and there was no reason to suppose the inoculated grass, even with its abnormal metabolism, could withstand climates foreign to its habit. It was true it had touched, in one place, the arctic tundra, but it was confidently expected this excursion would soon cease.
Not until later, when he stood alone with Stampede Smith in the edge of the cottonwoods, and the three girls were riding deer back over the tundra in the direction of the Range, did the sea of questions which had been gathering begin to sweep upon him. It had been Keok's suggestion that she and Mary and Nawadlook ride on ahead, and he had noticed how quickly Mary Standish had caught at the idea.
I could never pass one of those little bush huts on a great desolate tundra without thinking of the man who had once squatted in it alone, and trying to imagine what had been his thoughts while watching through long dreary nights for the first faint flush of dawn. Had he never wondered, as the fiery arms of the aurora waved over his head, what caused these mysterious streamers?
It was spreading quickly; shadows became part of the gloom, and this gloom crept in, thickening, drawing nearer, until the tundra was a weird chaos, neither night nor twilight, challenging vision until eyes strained futilely to penetrate its mystery. And as it gathered about them, enveloping them in their own narrowing circle of vision, Alan was thinking quickly.
The river-bed here is perhaps a hundred yards wide, but at that time the greater part of it was visible, the stream breaking above and coming down in two rapid, narrow forks touching each side of the shore. Across the river and the bar, and following its course, is a long stretch of tundra reaching out for several miles to low and barren mountains in the south and west.
I remember shooting ptarmigan, and that we ate them; flashes of memory recall the steady downpour of rain through the endless twilight of shaggy forests; dim days on the foggy tundra, mud-holes from which the wild ducks rose in thousands; then the stunted hemlocks, then the forest again.
There were muskegs to avoid. Broken stretches of tundra, trackless, treacherous. Cruel traps which only patience, labor, skill and great courage could avoid. Apart from all chances of hostile welcome the Bell River approaches claimed all the mental and physical sweat of man. The movements of the outfit if slow were sure, and seemingly inevitable.
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