"Wait! Listen! There, that! Why, it's a child crying."
"No, him Chèe."
"Let's go and bring him in."
"Bring dog in here?"
"Dog! That's no dog."
"Yes, him dog; him my Chèe."
"Making a human noise like that?"
Nicholas nodded. The only sounds for some time were the doleful lamenting of the Mahlemeut without, and the ravings of the Pymeut Chief within.
The Boy was conscious of a queer, dream-like feeling. All this had been going on up here for ages. It had been like this when Columbus came over the sea. All the world had changed since then, except the steadfast North. The Boy sat up suddenly, and rubbed his eyes. With that faculty on the part of the unlearned that one is tempted to call "American," a faculty for assimilating the grave conclusions of the doctors, and importing them light-heartedly into personal experience, he realised that what met his eyes here in Nicholas' house was one of the oldest pictures humanity has presented. This was what was going on by the Yukon, when King John, beside that other river, was yielding Magna Charta to the barons. While the Caesars were building Rome the Pymeut forefathers were building just such ighloos as this. While Pheidias wrought his marbles, the men up here carved walrus-ivory, and, in lieu of Homer, recited "The Crow's Last Flight" and "The Legend of the Northern Lights."
Nicholas had risen again, his mouth set hard, his small hands shaking. He unrolled an old reindeer-skin full of holes, and examined it. At this the girl, who had been about to make up the fire, threw down the bit of driftwood and hid her face.