"London, Jack - Tales of the klondyke" - читать интересную книгу автора (London Jack)

and I had eaten as a man with work before him should. Then I
spoke up, demanding the word, and they shrank from me, afraid of
my anger and what I should do; but the story came out, the pitiful
story, word for word and act for act, and they marvelled that I
should be so quiet.

"When they had done I went to the Factor's house, calmer than now
in the telling of it. He had been afraid and called upon the
breeds to help him; but they were not pleased with the deed, and
had left him to lie on the bed he had made. So he had fled to the
house of the priest. Thither I followed. But when I was come to
that place, the priest stood in my way, and spoke soft words, and
said a man in anger should go neither to the right nor left, but
straight to God. I asked by the right of a father's wrath that he
give me past, but he said only over his body, and besought with me
to pray. Look you, it was the church, always the church; for I
passed over his body and sent the Factor to meet my woman-child
before his god, which is a bad god, and the god of the white men.

Then was there hue and cry, for word was sent to the station
below, and I came away. Through the Land of the Great Slave, down
the Valley of the Mackenzie to the never-opening ice, over the
White Rockies, past the Great Curve of the Yukon, even to this
place did I come. And from that day to this, yours is the first
face of my father's people I have looked upon. May it be the
last! These people, which are my people, are a simple folk, and I
have been raised to honor among them. My word is their law, and
their priests but do my bidding, else would I not suffer them.
When I speak for them I speak for myself. We ask to be let alone.
We do not want your kind. If we permit you to sit by our fires,
after you will come your church, your priests, and your gods. And
know this, for each white man who comes to my village, him will I
make deny his god. You are the first, and I give you grace. So
it were well you go, and go quickly."

"I am not responsible for my brothers," the second man spoke up,
filling his pipe in a meditative manner. Hay Stockard was at
times as thoughtful of speech as he was wanton of action; but only
at times.

"But I know your breed," responded the other. "Your brothers are
many, and it is you and yours who break the trail for them to
follow. In time they shall come to possess the land, but not in
my time. Already, have I heard, are they on the head-reaches of
the Great River, and far away below are the Russians."

Hay Stockard lifted his head with a quick start. This was
startling geographical information. The Hudson Bay post at Fort
Yukon had other notions concerning the course of the river,
believing it to flow into the Arctic.