Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 69.djvu/140

136 they possessed beads, guns and pipes, these had been acquired from other tribes acting as middlemen. It is probable that people so little touched by our civilization no longer exist in North America. The basin of the Tanana is now occupied by a large mining camp with all that that implies, and the dignity and glory of the Mountain Men have departed.

Midsummer brought all dwellers in the valley to the rivers, that the winter's supply of salmon might be secured, the real staff of life to these people. The banks near the fishing camps were scarlet with long lines of fish, split and cleaned, drying in the sun. On the lower river the salmon were mostly taken in traps. Sis hundred miles up-stream only the larger and stronger species made their way. One of my most vivid recollections is of the sight, just after shooting the riffle at the lower Ramparts, of a fishing party provided with very large dip nets on long poles. The dusk was close upon us and the rank of birch canoes, arranged in line transversely to the stream, was already in the shadow of the canon. Chanting a weird low chant in perfect time, at a given moment the broad nets were simultaneously plunged into the water while the frail birches rocked under the strain. Two canoemen were needed to lift one of the great king salmon out of his native element. The order, precision and silence, except for the mystical chant; the bronzed faces and sinewy arms half disclosed in the waning twilight, the swift water and towering heights of the cañon, left an ineffaceable impression.

The Yukon was good to her children. From her waters came the fish of many sorts, their staff of life. On her broad sloughs and amongst her thickets, the wild geese rested and the ducks raised their downy broods. The furs and skins which kept the native warm and dry, came from her banks. The stately spruce and silvery birch along her shores supplied houses, canoes, utensils, traps and fuel. Floored with ice or flowing yellow in the sun, she was her people's highway. In death their elevated tombs were placed where might be had the widest view of Yukon water.

The Men of the Yukon had, like other men, their careers, affections, tragedies and triumphs. The valley whose rim enclosed their world, since they knew none other, was as wide for them as our world is for us. It is certain that for their world they had worked out problems which we are still facing with puzzled trepidation in ours. No man went hungry in a Yukon village. No youth might wed until he had killed a deer, as token that he could support his family. The trail might be lined with temporary caches, yet no man put out his hand to steal. Men were valued by their achievements and their liberality. Any man might rise to eminence and leadership by showing his fitness in his community. That there were evil doers occasionally is probable,