Down the Yukon Read Free

of all people. I know how you are.”
    â€œBecause he’s useless,” I said. “Got no business in the North. A dog up here should be good for something.”
    Both my brothers were thinking it over. They’d never laid eyes on King. They never saw the two of us climbing the Chilkoot, time after time, both loaded down like pack mules.
    Thoughts of King sent me into a reverie. Suddenly I could see the husky’s amber eyes, the sweep of the great tail across his back, his claws digging into the ice as he pulled the heavily loaded canoe over skid logs on the portage trails. Now, that was a dog.
    Of course I wasn’t being fair to the mutt. He couldn’t help being useless. Somebody must have brought him here for a pet and then abandoned him. It wasn’t like I was going to go out of my way to be cruel to him. I just didn’t much care for him, and wished Ethan wouldn’t get started with him.
    As Ethan gently stroked the mutt’s head, the dog closed its eyes contentedly. Ethan was already hooked.
    The next morning, Nuisance followed us through the gate. I would rather have seen him scale the fence again. It didn’t take him long to find his way back onto Ethan’s lap.
    â€œI hear thirty-five thousand men are working on the railroad over the White Pass,” Ethan said as he broke offa corner of hard biscuit and fed it to the dog, who took it with his rubbery black lips instead of his teeth. “They say it’ll reach Lake Bennett this summer. Imagine not having to deal with White Pass or the Chilkoot the hard way.”
    â€œDon’t talk to me about the hard way,” I joked. “You guys had pack horses.”
    Ethan laughed, slapped himself on the thigh. Startled for the moment, the dog lifted its ears straight up. Ethan stroked the crown of the mutt’s head reassuringly. “But you like doing things the hard way, Jason. Surprises me that city life suits you after all your time in the bush.”
    â€œIt’s so big out there. So many stars, and free as free can get so long as you don’t starve. Someday I suppose I will go back to the wilderness.”
    â€œIt’s never far away,” Abe commented. “It’s all around us like a vast ocean. I never cease to be amazed at all the activity in our little metropolis in the bush, thousands of miles from civilization. Three years ago Dawson was a swamp, and now it not only has electricity, it’s got running water and hot-water heat—practically everything but the telegraph.”
    â€œPeople say our hotels are furnished as fancy as any in New York,” Ethan added appreciatively. “Not that I’d know. Jason, you’ve been there.”
    â€œWhere I stayed, it wasn’t the Waldorf.”
    â€œWhat about some of these fancy restaurants here in Dawson? We should rent tailcoats sometime, Abraham…go to one of those places with the string orchestras…order pâté de foie gras. What do you say?”
    Abe’s disapproving eyebrow rose, as Ethan knew it would, and Abe said, as I knew he would, “You don’t even know what pâté de foie gras is, Ethan. I sure don’t.”
    â€œExactly,” Ethan replied a little testily. “I don’t have the slightest idea. That’s why we should order it. Just for a lark, Abe.”
    I glanced at Abe. He didn’t think this was amusing. For Abe, a lark was a bird. That’s the only kind of lark he knew.
    To steer them away from each other, I put in, “I wonder how Nome will affect us.”
    â€œGold in the beach sand?” Abe scoffed. “I don’t believe it. The news is garbled as can be. At any rate, Nome is seventeen hundred miles away.”
    The dog was back on four legs, about to launch himself into my lap. I didn’t stop him. Once there, he rolled partway over. I gathered my thoughts as I rested my warm coffee cup on his pink belly. He rolled his eyes at me in