"Tell me what led you out here in the first place. You are an
Eastern man. You have had advantages, education--and yet you
choose this. You must love the North."

"Indeed I do! It calls to a fellow in some strange way that a
gentler country never could. When once you've lived the long, lazy
June days that never end, and heard geese honking under a warm,
sunlit midnight; or when once you've hit the trail on a winter
morning so sharp and clear that the air stings your lungs, and the
whole white, silent world glistens like a jewel; yes--and when
you've seen the dogs romping in harness till the sled runners
ring; and the distant mountain-ranges come out like beautiful
carvings, so close you can reach them--well, there's something in
it that brings you back--that's all, no matter where you've lost
yourself. It means health and equality and unrestraint. That's
what I like best, I dare say--the utter unrestraint.

"When I was a school-boy, I used to gaze at the map of Alaska for
hours. I'd lose myself in it. It wasn't anything but a big, blank
corner in the North then, with a name, and mountains, and mystery.
The word 'Yukon' suggested to me everything unknown and weird--
hairy mastodons, golden river bars, savage Indians with bone
arrow-heads and seal-skin trousers. When I left college I came as
fast as ever I could--the adventure, I suppose....

"The law was considered my destiny. How the shades of old Choate
and Webster and Patrick Henry must have wailed when I forswore it.
I'll bet Blackstone tore his whiskers."