NORTHERN GAME TRAILS 281 



attraction for me, the uncanny creatures that 

 shelter in our houses and share our bread, yet live 

 in another world, a dumb, silent, lonely world 

 shut out from ours by impassable barriers ; draw- 

 ing sleds in the winter and picking up a vagabond 

 living in the idle summer, by hunting rabbits and 

 raiding cabins from the back doors. They 

 watched us disembark with hungry, savage eyes. 

 Venture among them at night with the slightest 

 fear and they will snarl and snap at your feet ; but 

 walk on your way without concern, or carry a 

 stout stick with a dominant air and they slink off 

 giving you a wide berth, watching you the while 

 from the corners of their luminous eyes. 



I had already arranged through J. Frank Call- 

 breath for my complete outfit, which consisted of 

 five strong pack horses, one saddle horse and two 

 Indians of the Tal-tan tribe. McClosky (gen- 

 erally known as Mac) acted as guide, and I have 

 never met a man, Indian or white, who could 

 equal Mac as a hunter. He is chief of his tribe 

 and in the winter carries the mail by dog team 

 two hundred miles out to Atlin. His stories of 

 the winter trails, told in his own quaint way 

 around the campfires at night, were very absorb- 

 ing and filled me with the thrill of the North, and 

 the great white silences. His brother Pat did the 



