Take the Indian, for instance.
The white man comes along and beats him at all his games, outworks him,
out-roughs him, out-fishes him, out-hunts him. As far back as their
myths go, the Alaskan Indians have packed on their backs. But the
gold-rushers, as soon as they had learned the tricks of the trade,
packed greater loads and packed them farther than did the Indians.
Why, last May, the Queen's birthday, we had sports on the river. In
the one, two, three, four, and five men canoe races we beat the Indians
right and left. Yet they had been born to the paddle, and most of us
had never seen a canoe until man-grown."
"But why is it?" Corliss queried.
"I do not know why. I only know that it is. I simply bear witness. I
do know that we do what they cannot do, and what they can do, we do
better."
Frona nodded her head triumphantly at Corliss. "Come, acknowledge your
defeat, so that we may go in to dinner. Defeat for the time being, at
least. The concrete facts of paddles and pack-straps quite overcome
your dogmatics. Ah, I thought so. More time? All the time in the
world. But let us go in. We'll see what my father thinks of it,--and
Mr. Kellar. A symposium on Anglo-Saxon supremacy!"
Frost and enervation are mutually repellant. The Northland gives a
keenness and zest to the blood which cannot be obtained in warmer
climes.
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