HERO TALES OF THE FAR NORTH [Illustration: (Publisher colophon)] THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO [Illustration: FREDERIKSBORG _See page 182_ ] HERO TALES OF THE FAR NORTH By JACOB A. RIIS AUTHOR OF “HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVES” “THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN” “THE OLD TOWN,” ETC. New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1919 _All rights reserved_ COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1910. Norwood Press J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass. U.S.A. THIS BOOK OF MY DEAD HEROES I DEDICATE TO MY LIVING HERO THEODORE ROOSEVELT MAY IT BE MANY YEARS BEFORE THE LAST CHAPTER OF HIS SPLENDID WHOLESOME LIFE IS WRITTEN IN THE PAGES OF OUR COUNTRY’S HISTORY FOREWORD When a man knocks at Uncle Sam’s gate, craving admission to his house, we ask him how much money he brings, lest he become a hindrance instead of a help. If now we were to ask what he brings, not only in his pocket, but in his mind and in his heart, this stranger, what ideals he owns, what company he kept in the country he left that shaped his hopes and ambitions,—might it not, if the answer were right, be a help to a better mutual understanding between host and guest? For the _Mayflower_ did not hold all who in this world have battled for freedom of home, of hope, and of conscience. The struggle is bigger than that. Every land has its George Washington, its Kosciusko, its William Tell, its Garibaldi, its Kossuth, if there is but one that has a Joan d’Arc. What we want to know of the man is: were its heroes his?