REMINISCENCES OF YUKON EXPLORATION 137 



but there was an unwritten limit which might not be transgressed with- 

 out condign punishment. 



The stranger was welcomed without inquisitiveness, sheltered and 

 fed without ostentation, and sent on his way without fee or reward. 

 The dead were protected and remembered; their deeds of prowess 

 handed down as examples for the young. Debauchery was unknown 

 until taught bv men of whiter skins. 



They suffered from the dread of mysterious powers, and the 

 shaman took his tithes of them. Their religion was vague and their 

 politics mostly a minus quantity; but in practice they knew what was 

 just and good, and in the main made it their rule of life. 



Such were the Men of the Yukon, to whom civilization and the greed 

 of gold brought drink, disease and death. The fittest has survived, but 

 the fittest for what? 



Time will restore their verdure to the Yukon placers, when the 

 gold has been extracted and the prospector ceases from troubling. The 

 graceful spruce will clothe her ravaged banks once more, and even the 

 salmon exterminated by the canneries will replenish her waters in the 

 fulness of time. The stern wheeler will pass away with the exhaustion 

 of the mines, or at least become a rarity. The Arctic calm will rest 

 once more upon her hillsides. But the Men of the Yukon trained to 

 her ways by the experience of generations, wise in her capabilities, con- 

 tented with her bounty, the true children of the river and its valley, 

 these she shall know no more. 





