dog teams, the polar bear, and the little woman who had pleaded with him to remain; and he saw her standing as he had left her with outstretched arms, while her very heart tissue was being torn asunder.  “Oh, for the ice and snow and the long, dark night,” he exclaimed; “anything but this awful heat.”  When they reached San Francisco he was almost insane, and his condition became critical; and, as if to punish him for his folly, the heat became intense for a few days.  They rushed him to the sea shore and he plunged into the water, and refused to come out again.  Those were the most congenial surroundings he had found since he left the frozen north.  He was in such misery that he did not have time to enjoy the wonders of civilization which he had risked so much to see.  Thus does distance lend enchantment to the view.  This was an instance of how a man had grown up with his environment—­had inherited qualities or weaknesses applicable to his surroundings, had breathed the air of one planet so long that the atmosphere of another was poison to him.  He had envied others a lot which it was constitutionally impossible for him to emulate.  And he wept for his hereditary infirmities and failings.  Could a man be blamed for regretting his ancestors and cursing the fate, or the necessity which drove them into those northern fastnesses at the early stages of their existence?  Here again the white man was to blame, for he, in his eagerness and greed, had seized upon the cream of the earth for himself and had driven all inferior or weaker peoples to all the four corners of the globe.  And of all the unfortunate, subordinate races, the Eskimo was the most unfortunate, and their condition savored of discrimination on the part of the powers that governed or ordained things.

As our hero had only one ambition while in the north—­an insane notion to go south—­he had only one ambition while in California—­an overpowering ambition to go north.

“Oh, for a mantle of snow, and a canopy of ice!” he shouted.  “And, oh, for one touch on mine of my Lola’s cold, sweet cheek.  Oh, for the frozen, hopeless northland, even if its condition means the perpetual doom and obliteration of the whole Eskimo race!”

They shipped him north as fast as steam could carry him, and from Dawson he went on foot, becoming day by day more and more his natural self.  When he neared his igloo he found his Lola standing with outstretched arms to welcome him even as she had mourned his departure, and he realized for the first time that the love and companionship of one woman is worth more than all the riches and wonders of the world put together.  They embraced each other with the grip of a vice, in the awful power of their natures, and their affection was as genuine as the most civilized variety.  And there he threw himself on the earth and hugged the snow of his dear northland.

Of the Sweet Young Things