C Ihe Ladies c cu. V'VVAN - History and Classics, Department of

80 THE LADIES, THE GWICH'IN, AND THE RAT"A man must draw the line somewhere," he assured us with a grim smile. "andmine was always plumb across the cabin."On the question of missionaries he had much to say and little that was good.The very word seemed to rouse him to scornful eloquence,"One time," he told us, "I met Mr Bloom up in Point Barrow country and Isays to him in a friendly way: 'Are you any relation to Mr Bloom the trader atHerschel?' He says: 'I am Mr Bloom of Herschel, but I'm a missionary, there's notrader of that name.' 'Is that so?' says I, T m a trader myself but 1 never gave a sackof flour to a husky and took two fox skins off him.' I tell you that missionarytraderchap had a gawd-awmighty struggle with his lower or higher self not tomurder me then and there. These missionaries, what do they do but teach theEskimos it isn't modest to strip to the waist, as they always do inside. women andall? Well, for myself 1 never was comfortable that way, I always like to keep asweater on, but as for the women, well, if a lad's 2I and doesn't know the shape ofa woman he's no more than half-educated. And as for the missionaries, theyseem to have forgotten how the Boss 0' that there tuning fork of the weather upaloft, sent down word once about the outside of the cup and platter being ofmighty little use."When we asked him about his whaling experiences he made a gesture as if tobrush the whole question aside, but we could see a reminiscent look in his blueeyes and then out came another of those anecdotes. lighting up the darkness ofhalf-forgotten days."Danger in whaling? No," with a snort, "why, what chance has a man. blinddrunk with rage, against a cool feller? That's what the whale is, blind drunk withrage. Oh, well, there was one little encounter I had. You see the wounded whalewas jammed into ice like, just a nick in the ice and we thought there might beroom to pass in the boat. Well, just as we were passing, up come the flukes of thewhale and lashed out sideways on me and the feller in the starboard bow. !fyoucan imagine several ton of good beef and muscle hurtling through the air andslashing at you, then you can guess what it was like. I took I4 years flying throughthe air, I did, and sawall that I'd ever seen over again; 20 feet I travelled before Ireached the water. And I knew nothing till next day when I heard the fellers say:'There's nothing to be done for old Cam. Only just make him comfortable. ,,,"That was the nrst I knew and 1 said: '!fyou think old Cam's stove in you'redarned bigger fools than I took you for.' Then they said: 'How's your back?' AndI said: 'Well, I guess my back's kind 0' queer.' They hadn't got no doctor nor