How about crawl budget? I would love to talk about crawl budget. Yeah, I think it's a term that's thrown around a lot in the industry and it seems like an abstraction of something that is much more technical and concrete and I think we can get a lot of clarity through this video. Hello and welcome to SEO Moodbusting. With me today is Alexis Senders from Merkle and you are a senior account manager of Moodbusting. Yeah okay so you work with a lot of different companies and accounts and I have like different kinds of work. Yesterday we were discussing fermented food because that's a hobby of yours. Yeah definitely. I went on a trip, came back and my boyfriend had fermented like everything. So like lots of kimchi. Oh my god we have so much kimchi. It's a huge jar. But we're not here today to talk about kimchi. So what are things that your clients and customers are dealing with and what's the question that you often get or what's the topic you would like to discuss? I would love to talk about crawl budget today. So to get started before we even talk about anything can we start with what is crawl budget? So kind of like recapping some of the stuff that Gary covered in his Google Webmaster article. That's a very good point. Actually the the article is a fantastic starting point to this entire journey. So when we are talking Google search and indexing and thus crawling we have a bit of a like what's it called trade-off to make and the trade-off that we have to make there is we want to get as much information crawled as quickly as possible but we don't want to overwhelm the service. Definitely. Right. And would you categorize that part of it as crawl limit? Yeah pretty much. Almost like an abstraction under an abstraction. Yeah it's like the that's the crawl rate basically. How much can we how much stress can we put on your server without crashing anything or like suffering from from killing your server too much and that's one thing. The other thing is we just have to be reasonable with our resources right. The web is really really large. So instead of just crawling everything all the time we need to make some distinctions there right. The news website probably changes quite often and we probably need to like be catching up with them every now and then whereas a website on the history of kimchi is probably not changing as often I mean nothing against kimchi but I think like the history isn't as fast-paced as the world news are. Yeah definitely. So that's the crawl demand so we try to figure out like is this something that we need to crawl more often or is this something where it's okay if we check up every now and then. And what goes into that decision making process so for instance if you had that kimchi website or if you had something like archive.org where it's really just something that's going to be constant for a long period of time and there really isn't going to be any changes. Yeah. How do you guys determine that? So we basically fingerprint content as we crawl it right so we see like what is this page about we use that for the duplication later on but we also look into like when was this last change. So you can tell us in things like structured data has a possibilities you can have date elements somewhere in your page. We more or less keep track of one or how often or how frequently things are changing and if we detect that the frequency of change is really low then we don't have to crawl as much. That has nothing to do with quality you can have fantastic content that will rank really high or whatever that never changes. It's more about is this information that we need to revisit every now and then or is this something that we can leave alone for a longer period of time. Now do you use do you guys use something like the e-tag or the last modified network header or is it more about taking that fingerprint of the content. So you can give us various like hints as I said structured data dates are one e-tag is an interesting one as well the HTTP headers are useful for this last modified date in sitemap. Right? Yeah. And as more the more useful you're making these if you just like automatically update the last modified date in the sitemap and we figure out that does not correspond to actual changes on the website or the website changes are minimal then that's not helping us. Not only that at some point we're just going to be like okay so this is not useful for this particular site so but as much information as we get we will use to figure out what we can reasonably expect as a change frequency. Nice so going backwards a little bit what size of sites should be worried about crawl budget should be worried about hitting that crawl limit. Large sites and like if we were to give like millions of pages okay cool so if you have under a million pages really crawl budget is not something that you should be concerned about. Yes unless you have a really flaky server setup but then again crawl budget isn't your problem your problem is your server setup right. No definitely so do you typically see that the issue isn't really with the server setup but more with the crawl demand or do you see it more with the server setup. Depends on what you say the issue is isn't like so normally crawl budget gets cited in many many different times when there actually wasn't an issue to begin with it was just like the quality of the content was bad and that's why we didn't index it so we crawled it we figured out oh this is not worth keeping then we didn't index it and people are like so is this a crawl budget problem we're like no no we we have crawled it it was just not good. And is that what you would typically see in like the excluded section of the GSE report these things are really helpful sometimes you also see people are like oh yeah my crawl budget is really low and I'm like yeah but is that is that a problem are you having like lots of changing content and they're like actually no it's like a block that updates once a week and I'm like how big of a problem really is that sometimes it's also people just barely missing the the crawl window where we does not discover the URL and if you're not submitting it in sitemaps then we are we have to crawl another page to find that link to that URL and then we're going to crawl that one so using sitemap reasonably is a good idea for these things but again if you're not having millions of pages and crawl budget is really yeah so let's say you're working with a major e-commerce or something like real estate where you have hundreds of millions of pages that are a little bit smaller maybe a little bit similar um is there anything that those industries can do to make their pages crawled more often or more appealing to google so as you said so the thing is like being crawled more often is not necessarily helping it's not giving us a signal for quality or it's not meaning like oh this is fantastic um having something crawled and then indexed and then never changing is okay as far as we're concerned but um for e-commerce I would highly recommend if you were saying something very interesting like a lots of smaller pages that are very similar to each other if they are very similar to each other should they exist is my first question or is it more like a can you extend the content for instance if it's product variations of it maybe you just describe them in a table inside one page rather than having 10 pages for all the variations definitely which colors are available well it almost brings to fact that there's so many different issues that fit into crawl budget whether it's like duplication or finding the pages yes server speed is an issue right if you have a server that every now and then just flakes on us yeah then we don't know is that because it's a flaky server is that because we are about to overwhelm you you got a flaky server yes like it's just wobbly and falling over every now and then then we have to be careful we have to touch very lightly on that server so let's say someone is switching over their site to a more powerful server what is something they should expect to see in their log files if google is testing their servers to see how much they can handle they might see like an increase in crawl activity and then like a small decrease again and basically there's like this wave motion that's gonna happen um but normally when they just switch the server and nothing else changes you might not even see us doing anything you just see like it just continues to go through definitely unless you change from something that was broken to something that works then you probably see more crawling happening okay so what about in the situation of migrations a lot of sites are really hyper aware about how their site is being crawled during a migration are there any tips that you guys have to making sure that your site is being crawled accurately so what you can definitely do is you can make sure that you're more or less progressively updating your site map and saying like this has now changed this has now changed and this has now changed and it's now time to crawl that and we crawl it we get a redirect that's actually a change that is interesting for us and then you can control a little bit on how we discover the change in the migration but generally speaking just make sure that both your both servers are up on par and like running smoothly and not like flaking out every now and then or like giving us error codes definitely make sure that your your redirects are set up correctly as well and that you're not accidentally blocking important things for us to understand once we are landing if you have like a robot steaks tb forehand and then you change that completely different URLs being blocked and put that on the other thing then we're like what's happening here what is going on yeah so that's not a great idea so try to like do one thing at a time do not be like we're going to change the text deck we're going to change the server we're going to change the URLs we're going to change the content and we're going to migrate to a different domain it's like that's a lot too much for one year too much for one project no for sure okay so for crawl budget what levels of a site does it affect so if you have a cdn will it affect your site if you have a subdomain or a domain at what levels of your infrastructure is it affecting that depends so generally speaking we go on the site level so everything that is on the same domain okay sometimes subdomains might be counted towards that sometimes they are not cdns are weird one where it's like kind of counted against your site but not really and you should normally not worry about it and i think like it's stressing so much SEOs enjoy yourself and what's interesting is when it comes to crawl budget where i would say like you should consider this especially if you're dealing with user generated content you can try to tell us not to index or not to crawl certain things that you know are bad okay so it's more of a content side of things rather than the technical infrastructure side of things yeah definitely okay so does crawl budget actually affect both your indexing phase crawling phase and your rendering phase crawl budget does actually touch on rendering because as we render we will fetch additional resources that comes from your core budget yeah because again the trade off is still there right when we're crawling initially we don't want to overwhelm your server but the same goes to when we're rendering we don't want to overwhelm your server there what's the point in killing your e-commerce website just because we are making thousands of requests at the same time to crawl all these resources so it can happen especially if you have a large site with millions of URLs and you get your caching wrong for instance that we actually have to fetch everything over and over and over again which means we have a lot of simultaneous requests to your server if your server then slows down significantly then we'll be like oh okay careful and then resource fetches might fail so we might be able to like fetch and render the first I don't know 500,000 pages but then suddenly the resources seem to fail because we're like ah we are not we don't want to make more requests at this point and then we can't really render them so that would be bad yeah so what do we do in terms of caching for those resources so obviously with pages we can put them in excellent site maps and all the stuff you mentioned before with potentially structured data and then maybe even adding some network headers but what do you think about those resources that could be really consuming yeah of google's resources absolutely so the thing is we're trying to be as aggressive as possible when we're caching sub resources such as css, javascript, api calls all that kind of stuff if you have api calls that are not get requests then we can't cache them so you want to be very careful we're doing like post requests or something like that some apis are doing that by default and then i'm like hey that's an interesting one because we can't cache it so that's going to consume your call budget quicker um the other thing is uh you can help us by making sure that URLs optimally never change so what is a really good idea is you can have content hashes in your resources so instead of saying like application dot javascript you can say application dot and then this hash that describes the content like asc exactly like this these md5 hashes dot javascript then this will never change so when you're making an update to your javascript you get a different url so we can cache the other thing forever yeah and once we get to get the new html we get the new url so the javascript and then it's almost like versioning it's like versioning in the url exactly nice so for that first version that you would have or any particular version that you would have would that how long is that typically cached for it depends but we're trying to cache as aggressively as possible so this can be like a day this can be a week this can be a month and we might ignore caching headers so if you're telling us this expires tomorrow and we're like no it does not then we might just cache it nonetheless yeah awesome so do you find that any issue any particular industries complain more about crawl budget than others or talk more about it that's true i think like e-commerce and publishers are quite prone to this because they have historically typically large sites with lots of pages and they might actually run into this we had a really interesting situation with one webmaster presented that a webmaster conference on Zurich once in Japan it's a website that has lots of user generated content and they do machine learning to figure out if the quality of the content that was produced is considered good or not and if it's not good then they put it in no index and they put it in robots txt so that we are not wasting crawl budget on it and that way they steer because they had a crawl budget of like 200 000 pages per day or something like that but they had like a million coming in and most of it was spam so they're like uh it's annoying if we just waste our crawl budget for the day on spam that will not get indexed anyway so that's an interesting one so do you believe that there's an overall quality metric that google uses so for that particular site in general because they had so much non-high quality content did that affect google's outlook on their content overall not really it was more like this this page is not good we're not going to put it in the index so that's that's the outcome really or if it's light on content if someone just literally posts a picture and says like haha then that's not great content necessarily especially if the picture is just a repost of some i don't know meme or some some stock photo right yeah definitely so what are some things that we as webmasters and seos and agency people can recommend to our clients on how to help google bot out and help your rendering system out as well so if you know that there's URLs that you don't need to render the page and that's a very big be careful here because if you're like blocking the entire api because like oh we don't need the api and then the javascript does need the api to render the page then that you don't get the full experience exactly do not block that because then we might actually not see much content but if you have something that definitely like internal analytics or some internal like tools or some chat tool that pops up or whatever just don't don't let that be crawled because what's the point yeah also you can do you recommend blocking it the robots.txt for those particular resources like kind of drawing them in a full time sure yes yes just be careful that you're not putting something rule at 60 that turns out to be useful and important later yeah yeah you can also big caution there yes you can also especially with client-side rendered apps you oftentimes have like a bunch of api calls going to and from you can proxy that through like a facade kind of thing you basically build a little application that all it does is it takes one request for one specific piece of data that you need to render the page makes all the api requests and all the back-end requests that it needs maybe has a layer of caching as well to make this faster and then has one response going back that way you have one response a one request one response cycle so i may sound a bit goofy but this is something like graphql my graphql exactly yes but with graphql again be careful to not use the post mode no make sure that it uses get requests not post requests yeah but yeah there's a bunch of stuff you can do and yeah and basically cut off the bits that you don't want crawled and give us information of the frequency of change in site maps and stuff so that we can get a better grasp of where we should be spending our time definitely and do you see any pitfalls that people fall into with crawl budget quite often well definitely the robots one like that happens all the time that they block something that turns out to be an important resource like it does not need to load the css and we're like we don't know what the page looks like so we need to lay out exactly this people sometimes fall for it when they do like a b testing that like something gets no index when they don't want it and then they waste crawl budget on something that doesn't end up in the index like yeah like all sorts of things can go wrong my favorite is when people are dealing with servers that are not configured correctly and then they just give you like a 500 something and we're like okay if this happens that we're not crawling this much anymore because we don't want to overwhelm your server and people are like why is google not crawling this and we're like well because your server constantly tells us that it's overwhelmed yeah yeah so let's say you have a very large site and you know you have these mega powerful servers with gigabytes and gigabytes of data are we um is there any way that we can tell google that hey you're you can crawl us more like we expect you to crawl us more here right you can't really uh we are detecting that what you can do is you can limit us but you can't really like say more please more please okay um this crawl scheduler is relatively clever when it comes to these kind of things and normally if we detect like oh there's lots of good content good content out there on this page and the site map is full of of URLs then we'll try to grab as much as we can and as long as your server doesn't like tell us not to we'll continue doing that so eventually the the crawl budget might rank uh ramp up to what you would expect to see oh lovely so just keep creating fresh great quality content is really what it comes down to to generally the answer to pretty much everything good quality content if it's fresh also great awesome Alexis thank you so much for being with me and having this fantastic conversation and I think there was like a bunch of nuggets in there and it's great having you here so thank you so much you did this and I hope you enjoyed it and see you soon again thanks so much everyone next episode we have Eric with us and we're going to be talking about page speed how it works in ranking what to look out for what to not do and how to not get it wrong it's such a great topic because so many people do get it wrong I'm afraid so don't miss out on the next episode


A Taoist story tells of an old man who accidentally fell into a river and was sucked by the river rapids to the bottom of the river, completely out of sight. Onlookers feared for his life and rushed down to the riverbank, trying to see him. Miraculously, as they ran down a riverbend, they came to a shallow section and they found the old man, walking out, completely unscathed. The people all rushed to his side and asked him how he managed to survive. The man looked at them, ringing out a shirt and simply said, I became one with the water, instead of trying to force the water to do what I wanted it to. Plunging into the swirl, I came out with the swirl. I surrendered to the flow, which ebbed up and down naturally. This is how I survived. Now, naturally, we don't recommend that you jump in some rapids and take this literally just to try it out, but this parable does have some great insights if you know how to apply it. Many times, spiritual people spend their lives swimming upstream, fighting a powerful current in their attempts to be holy and live the way they believe their God will find pleasing, or that they think is an alignment with their true self. After some time, many of these people will get tired in their efforts to maintain what they believe are holy, righteous lives and will often give up. Whenever we go against the grain, we're not only having to put the effort into succeed, but also to push back against friction and resistance, which makes our job twice as hard. If instead you take a second to see the direction things are moving naturally and adjust yourself to that, you'll gently flow with the current. It's also interesting to see that the old man ebbs up and down with the flow of the river, as we should remember that flow doesn't always go in one direction. Life is more of a push and pull, yin and yang than a straight path, and while we often think going down or backwards is a bad thing, following her medic laws, everything is cyclical, and it's only later that you'll look back and recognize that the whole process was ultimately beneficial, even the part of being dragged under the current. A lot of Taoist parables mention flowing water and rivers, mostly in metaphors for the flow of life itself. However, as water naturally flows around obstacles, viewing the situations in our lives as obstacles is an expression of judgment. Instead, perhaps by surrendering to the flow of life, we flow with the stream of the Tao, and our attitude becomes one of non-judgment, which like the water allows us to flow unobstructed and freely, no matter what the situation. Now, it's important to say I don't think that this means turning the other cheek or becoming a doormat as a reaction to events in life, but instead, the lesson of this parable seems to lie in being proactive in life, following the natural order of things, solving problems by not creating them in the first place, by not forcing one's way against the flow of the river, and letting it naturally carry you to your exit point with grace. A young student approached his guru one day and said, Master, you have spoken so much about karma, but I do not yet understand it. How can I truly learn? The guru smiled and gestured for the student to follow. The two walked silently to the edge of the village where workers were busily engaged in making bricks for a house. The two stood and watched the activity of the brickmakers for some time, and the guru asked, Now, do you understand karma? No, Master, the student replied. The guru paused and slowly nodded his head. He cleared his throat. What are the workers doing? Making bricks, the student responded. Very good. And what happens to the bricks once they're made? Asked the guru. They're put in the stack, the student said. And then, the guru asked. Well, they're used to build a house, the student responded. Getting more agitated because he could not see what a single brick had to do with karma. The exchange continued, elaborating on every step of how and where the bricks were made until finally the guru sighed and turned to a student. He leaned over and picked up a freshly made brick and handed it to the youth. Here, carry this brick with you everywhere you go. Do not put it down under any circumstances.  Yes, said the student. Good, returned to me with the same brick in a year's time, exclaimed the guru. A year later to the day, the student returned brick in hand to the guru. The youth was barely able to contain his frustration. Master, I have done exactly as you told me. I have carried this brick with me everywhere and it has nothing more than caused aggravation and a nuisance among several other things I will not mention in your holy presence. And I have learned nothing at all about karma. The guru chuckled. Did you set the brick down at any time? He asked. No, master, I carried it everywhere. The student exclaimed. The guru smiled. Ah, now do you understand karma? Karma is one of those things in the West that is seldom understood truly, as it has been passed down to us through translation after translation. While the basic understanding states that whatever we do will eventually return to us, the actual philosophy is much deeper rooted. This parable speaks to the burdens and choices we carry with us and how they can affect us in later life if we don't take time to work through them. Just as the tiny brick is used to make the foundation of a house, even the smallest and most seemingly insignificant event or act can have huge effects on our future and lives if we aren't aware. Perhaps this parable even speaks to the cyclical nature of the universe. Maybe there's an echo here of the whole holding onto a glass idea, where initially a glass of water is easy to pick up, but the longer that you hold onto it, the heavier it seems to become to us. Perhaps even the smallest of choices that we make can be carried with us for long times. Now, the student could have put the brick down at any time, but they remained true to their word and hopefully learned the lesson the guru was teaching. While karma is often presented as something we carry over between lifetimes, perhaps the silver lining here is that maybe clearing our karmic baggage is as easy as choosing to let go of the brick. And by letting go, we simply become part of a new cycle. A hermit was meditating by a river when a young man interrupted him. Master, I wish to become your disciple, said the young man. Hmm, why? The hermit asked. Well, like, you know, to find God and stuff, I guess, the young man responded. The hermit jumped up, grabbed the man by the scruff of the neck and then dragged him into the river and plunged his head under the water. After holding him there for half a minute with him kicking and struggling to come back up, the hermit finally pulled him out of the river. The young man coughed up water and gasped to catch his breath. And then the hermit asked, tell me, what did you want more than anything when you were underwater? Air gasped the man very well.  Now, I gotta be real with you, this should be called the parable of the brutal hermit, I'll tell you that much. While we can mostly agree the methods probably aren't the best way to teach someone, poor guy probably has aquafobia now. The hermit does make a very good point. Spirituality is a lifestyle. It's a way of living life in alignment with your true self, being connected to the core of your being and the world around you. It isn't just something that you can turn off or on when it suits you. Many people who start on a spiritual journey may eventually become disillusioned with it because they find it isn't really an alignment with them or their core values, or it just isn't what they imagined. In many cases, people sometimes want something but are afraid to give something else up in order to achieve it. As such, people often miss the simple truth of a spiritual path. I don't meditate to gain anything, I meditate to lose it. Contrary to what many religions may say, if you want to find God bad enough, you don't need someone else's help, but to find true wisdom, you must go after it with the same desperation as wanting air. Because in the way are many obstacles keeping you from actually finding it and applying it to life. But once you do find it and apply it, the cultivation of wisdom leads to inner peace, purposeful living, and relationships that work. But most of all, it leads to freedom. Once upon a time, Jesus approached a town on his journey. Word had spread of his arrival and soon a great crowd came together around him. And people not only from this town, but the next town also. And as they listened to his words, he said in a parable, Listen, a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground and immediately they sprang up. And when the sun rose, they were scorched since they had no root and withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns and the thorns grew up and choked them, yielding no grain. And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding 30-fold and 60-fold and 100-fold. And so, he who has the ears to hear, let him hear. Now, this is one of the most famous parables from Jesus' teachings, who explains himself that the seed is the wisdom, truth, and love in each and every heart. The seeds that fell along the path and were trodden underfoot or consumed by the birds of the air are those who have received the truth in their hearts, but they do not grow because the busyness of life consumes the mind and the seeds disappear from memory and the truth is not heard any longer. And the seeds that fell on the rocks are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy and grow enthusiastically. But these have no roots. They believe it for a while, but when they are asked to ground what they have received, they fall away. And as for what fell among thorns, they are those who hear the wisdom, but as they go along their way, they are suffocated by the pressures, riches, and self-indulgent distractions of life, and their fruit simply does not mature. But the seed who is planted on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it, fully believes in it and nurtures it within them. This is the one who produces a crop yielding 30, 60, or even 100 times what was sown. In other words, where you put your effort, where you plant your heart, your bodies and minds, cause and effect of your creations. While this parable is used often as a discussion on the importance of the gospel, which is a valid interpretation, even non-Christians can interpret it in their own way and find value in the wisdom, as is the case with many teachings. Jesus often said that he taught in parables because people were opposed to his direct teachings. Even if he were to take the tale at face value and see the seeds as wisdom or intentions rather than the word of the gospel, the underlying message is the same. Sometimes all that's needed for truth and wisdom to prosper in an environment is a belief that it can, but even then the truth will only enlighten those who believe in it. Ultimately, whatever walk of life you come from, this parable teaches us to be purposeful with everything that we do, every thought that you think, take it as a chance to plant your own wisdom and truth in good soil, and the kingdom of heaven will be beholden unto you, whatever form that may take. Shortly after telling the parable of the sower and the seeds, Jesus came across a man possessed by demons and healed his illnesses. But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, It is only by Beelzebub, the Prince of Demons that this man drives out demons, Christ turned and called to them, and when they came close he stated with a parable, Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined and every city or household divided against itself will not stand. If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself, how then can his kingdom stand? And if I drive out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your people drive them out? While this parable is evidently Christian in nature and serves to show the power of God, the central idea of unifying your own kingdom also has great value in itself. Throughout our daily lives, many of us attempt to multitask far too often. We'll go 100 miles an hour and attempt to do 100 different things at once, sometimes because we believe we only have so much time in the day or gain something by completing our tasks. However, multitasking in such a way always inevitably makes us exhausted. By splitting our attention between multiple tasks, we divide ourselves into different pieces that are all clamoring for our undivided attention. Whether it be in your professional, personal or spiritual lives, we do have a tendency to spread ourselves too thin, put our foot in too many doors and divide ourselves up into too many pieces. And while this has become somewhat normal in society today, it doesn't mean it's safe to stay that way. Jesus' discussion of a kingdom also doesn't necessarily refer to the kingdom of heaven or hell here, although of course it still does in the bigger picture, but it can also speak to your own personal domain. Historically, a house could mean your home, sure, but it can also be used to refer to your family, legacy or dynasty, and in more modern times can be thought of as your own life and personal reality. In which case, the parable speaks to unifying the various aspects of your life, especially at the foundations. If your house remains split and divided among 100 different things, it will crumble again and again no matter how hard you try to keep it all together. In other words, in order to create a meaningful life and experience, your goals, actions, words and activities should be in alignment with your truest goals and aspirations, the inner Christ consciousness, and they should all fall under one roof. If your actions or beliefs aren't in line or unified with your goals and hopes and dreams and wishes, you'll end up going round and round in circles until your life eventually falls apart, needing to be rebuilt. However, if you take the time throughout your day to step back and take a moment of quiet to reflect on your goals and yourself, then to quote Matthew 725, the rain will fall, the rivers will rise, and the winds will blow and pound the house, yet it will not collapse. One day, Zhuang Zha and a friend were walking by the river. Look at the fish swimming about, said Zhuang Zha. They are really enjoying themselves. You're not a fish, replied his friend. There's no way that you could truly know that they're enjoying themselves. You are not me, replied Zhuang Zha. So how could you know that I do not know that the fish are enjoying themselves? I am not you, to be sure, replied his friend. So of course I don't know about you, but you are obviously not a fish, so the case is complete. You do not know that the fish are happy. Zhuang Zha smiled. Let's go back to the beginning. You said, how do you know the fish are happy, but in asking me this, you already knew that I know it. I know it right here, above this river. This parable comes to us from a book of Zhuang Zha, one of the two foundational texts of Taoism that contains stories that exemplify the carefree nature of the ideal Taoist sage. While the exact point or lesson isn't always clear, it's thought that the tale is a discussion about the nature of knowledge. Everyone we meet in the world may have a different view of life, having different subjective knowledge and experience. However, if knowledge comes through experience and learning, is there such a thing as true or objective understanding? The point seems to be that knowing a thing is simply a state of mind, and that it isn't really possible to determine if that knowing has any objective validity by looking at it outside of ourselves, as all understanding is ultimately experiential. Zhuang Zha often beautifully concludes this tale by saying, I know the joy of fishes in the river through my own joy as I go walking along the same river. After all, even modern science today is simply a collection of atoms trying to understand themselves through direct experience. As some scholars of Taoist texts have pointed out, this tale is a great example of Zhuang Zha's wisdom and written mastery, as he is said to use reason to make an anti-rationalist point. The alchemist picked up a book that someone in the caravan had brought. Leafing through the pages, he found a story about Narcissus. The alchemist knew the legend of Narcissus, a youth who knelt daily beside a lake to contemplate his own beauty. He was so fascinated by himself that one morning, he fell into the lake and drowned. At the spot where he fell, a flower was born, which was called the Narcissus. But this was not how the author of the book ended the story. The author told that when Narcissus died, the goddess of the forest appeared and found the lake, which had been freshwater, transformed into a lake of salty tears. Why do you weep? the goddess asked. I weep for Narcissus, the lake replied. Ah, it is no surprise that you weep for Narcissus, the goddess said. For though we always pursued him in the forest, you alone could contemplate his beauty close at hand. But was Narcissus beautiful? the lake asked. Who better to know that than you? the goddess said in wonder. After all, it was by your banks that he knelt each day to contemplate himself. The lake was silent for some time. Finally, it said, I weep for Narcissus, but I never noticed that he was beautiful. I weep because each time he knelt beside my banks, I could see in the depths of his eyes my own beauty reflected. What a lovely story, the alchemist thought. This modern version of the Greek myth finds its place in the prologue of Coelos, the alchemist, and holds a message on the importance of self-love, our interconnection, and the reflective nature of that which we call reality. While the original myth was pretty dramatic, with Narcissus killing himself because he couldn't get his own reflection to love him back, and then turning into a daffodil, so metal, I know. This version expertly shifts the focus, showing us that when we love ourselves, it shines through us, and that love can bring others to feel the same. Many times we can't see our own importance, as we go through life day after day just trying to get by, and get caught up in other people's perceptions of us. And it isn't really until someone else points out how important we are to them, that we actually realize it. Sometimes the key to understanding ourselves lies in seeing how we are reflected in another, and by acknowledging other perspectives than our own, we come to an even greater realization of our true and beautiful nature. You see, Narcissus enjoying his beauty wasn't wrong, and in fact, we might argue, based on what the lake said at the end, that Narcissus wasn't even enjoying his own beauty, but the beauty of the lake moving through him. On the other hand, his love also allowed the lake to see its own beauty, and the dance of the soul between man and nature becoming intertwined. For this idea we can dive deeper, asking the question, was it wrong for Narcissus to become so enamored that he killed himself in the process? What if, from a spiritual perspective, this version of the story is truly about the soul of Narcissus merging with the soul of nature? It's interesting then that on the surface level, it is viewed purely about being narcissistic, which, of course, is where we get the word from at all. Should Narcissus have been less than what he was? No, but I suppose that had he not been so enamored by the lake and his reflection, he could have found a way to give others the same loving reflection that he gave to the lake. Ultimately, this parable teaches us not only that balanced self-worth is vital, but also that our reality, no matter what perspective we take, is still a reflection of our own inner self, and that if you allow yourself to see the beauty in all things, you might as well see it in yourself too. A boy went on a journey to seek the wisest man in the land, seeking the secret of happiness. Upon arriving at his home, the boy found a hive of activity. Tradesmen came and went, people were conversing, and a small orchestra was playing soft music. When he approached, the wise man listened to the boy's explanation of why he had come, but responded that he didn't have time just then to explain the secret of happiness. He suggested that the boy look around the palace and return in two hours. However, before the boy departed, the wise man handed him a teaspoon that held two drops of oil. As you wander around, carry this spoon with you without allowing the oil to spill. The boy began to move throughout the many rooms of the palace, keeping his eyes fixed on the spoon. After two hours, he returned to the room where the wise man was, who promptly asked, well, did you see the Persian tapestries hanging in my dining hall, the garden that took the master gardener 10 years to create, or the beautiful parchments in my library? The boy was embarrassed and confessed that he had observed nothing. His only concern had been to not spill the oil that the wise man had entrusted to him. Then go back and observe the marvels of my world, said the wise man. You cannot trust a man if you do not know his house. Relieved, the boy picked up the spoon and returned to his exploration of the palace, this time observing all of the marvels that the wise man had suggested. And upon returning at last, he related in detail everything that had been seen. But where are the drops of oil that I entrusted to you? Asked the wise man. Looking down at the spoon, he saw that the oil was gone. Well, there's only one piece of advice I can give you, said the wise man. The secret to happiness is to see all of the marvels of the world, and never forget the drops of oil on the spoon. This parable seemingly speaks to living in balance with our approach to life. While at first it seems like a contradiction, with the wise man sending the boy off on a journey, only to change the reasoning each time, there is evidently much to be seen in the world. But this tale teaches us that we must not lose sight of our primary responsibilities in life while doing so. When the boy doesn't spill the oil, he becomes consumed by it and misses everything around him, missing the beauty of the world. If he is spilling the oil, he's losing sight of his original goal, losing focus because of the things he sees in the world as he moves about. As he becomes distracted by the amazing wonders around him, he loses sight of his purpose and will wander aimlessly. But at the same time, if he focuses too much on the oil, he loses that sense of amazement and wonder that the world can bring. For us, if we were to go about our goals in life mindfully, we would always have time to appreciate the world around us. As in the end, our experiences and memories will be what remain. If however we focus only on a single goal and ignore the wider world, then we might rush through life and forget about the journey itself. In other words, this parable teaches us to balance the big picture and small details of our lives and enjoy our surroundings while accomplishing our goals. Enjoy and experience everything the world has to offer and have fun. But never forget the reason you're on your path. Go about your goals mindfully and always put the most important thing in your life today at the top of your to-do list.


120 years ago, two brothers in their mid 30s, Orwell and Wilbur Wright, went up to the hills of Kitty Hawk and changed the history of the world. A century later, Warren Buffett, the world's most famous stock market investor, would say this about that historic flight. If a fast-sighted capitalist had been present at Kitty Hawk, he would have done his success as a huge favour by shooting Orwell down. Now, why would Buffett say such a thing about the world's first controlled airplane flights? That's because the airline business is notoriously difficult and almost no one makes any money in it. So what about this historic mega deal by the Tatars to buy a new aircraft to completely revamp Air India? How does that make business sense? The reason I'm asking this question is because over so many decades that airlines have been flying, virtually no company has got back the money they invested. In the US, which along with China has the heaviest air traffic in the world, airlines have gone bankrupt repeatedly. One estimate suggests that between 1981 and 2011, airline companies in America lost 60 billion dollars. Now, why did that happen? The first is that running an airline involves huge costs. Fuel makes up between 20 to 25% of the operating costs, leasing planes or financing their purchases, another very hefty cost. Then there are salaries. They have to be at the top end of the scale because it involves expertise and training and it is considered to be risky. On the other side, there are far too many airlines in the world and they compete with each other to offer cheap flights to passengers. And if an airline tries to raise ticket prices too much, then the demand immediately drops sharply. So earning revenues is a very difficult game in the aviation sector. And what is true for the world is actually true for India as well. Look at what has happened to all the private airline companies which launched with such a lot of fanfare. Kingfisher Airlines folded up and Vijay Malia ran away to London. Jet Airways went under in 2019 after operating for 26 long years. SpiceJet wrapped up losses, then changed hands, made some money for a while and has come back to making losses. It has lost over 4000 crore rupees in the last 4 years. And Indigo Airlines at one time considered to be the best-run Indian airline has reported over 12000 crore in losses in the past 3 years. Of course, one big reason for these losses is the impact COVID had on air travel. In fact, before that, for almost a decade, the aviation industry was doing reasonably well. Globally, many airlines went out of business in the early 2000s. So by the mid-2010s, which meant there was much less competition. So most airlines increased the number of seats in each plane, increasing the number of passengers they could carry in each flight. And that reduced the average running costs. And if you've travelled in economy class in the past decade, you would have seen how that has affected passenger comfort, right? And finally, probably most importantly, oil prices remained subdued for a very long time. Bringing their biggest single operating costs down. That made even a skeptic like Warren Buffett change his views on the aviation industry. And he invested a lot of money in the big 4 American airline companies sometime around 2015-2016. But this, as Buffett later admitted, was a mistake. We put whatever was 7 or 8 billion into it and we did not take out anything like 7 or 8 billion. And that was my mistake, but it's always a problem if there are things on the lower levels of probabilities that happen sometimes. And it happened to the airlines and I'm the one who made the decision. Buffett exited the airline business in 2020, selling all his shares at a loss. It wasn't that he was saying that the shares wouldn't recover. His idea was that COVID had changed the airline business forever because it had changed the way companies do business. For all airlines, business travelers are key because they travel throughout the year and often choose to pay more to get more comforts. Leisure travelers, on the other hand, travel during holiday seasons. They always look for the cheapest tickets and sometimes change their plans if tickets are too expensive. So COVID has made a big chunk of business travel redundant. More companies are now focusing on virtual meetings because it is less time consuming and it's significantly cheaper. But this is bound to happen one day, but COVID has speeded up that process. It has made even the most tech-resistant people comfortable with video conferencing. Warren Buffett is part of a growing tribe of investors and analysts who believe that the aviation industry cannot make up for the decline in business travel. It is in this context that Air India's decision to lease and buy 47 new planes seems risky. It's risky business to say the least. The deal size is not known but it is estimated to be anywhere between 80 to 110 billion dollars. There's a huge plan to expand in an industry where expansion always leads to losses. The only periods airlines have made money is when there's low capacity, many flyers and few seats. This expansion plan is taking place in a country where a very small percentage of people can afford to pay the real cost of flying. So there's a limit beyond which airlines cannot raise prices. The only time they're able to is when there's a shortage of seats in key sectors for short periods like Delhi, Mumbai, or flights going to Bangalore or Hyderabad. Now on top of that the Modi government is planning to start high speed bullet trains on some of the most lucrative sectors which will be a direct competition for airlines. The Tata Group will have to end up taking a lot of debt to finance the deals with Boeing and Airbus which as I said earlier has been estimated to be anywhere between 80 to 110 billion dollars. That's 6.5 to 9 lakh crore rupees. That's a lot of money. Now most aviation industry experts say that the Tata's will get cheap loans because they have a very good credit history. The trouble is that if they borrow abroad the loans will have an additional foreign exchange risk. The cost of borrowing will keep going up with the dollar's trendings. And then Indian banks especially public sector banks will be called upon to refinance these loans. This is risky not just for the Tata Group by the way but for the entire banking sector. This is potential NPA or bad loan territory. Mind you I'm not saying that Air India absolutely cannot make big money out of these huge investments. I'm just pointing out that the lessons from the aviation sector's history. They tell us that expansion is bad for business and that is precisely what Air India is doing right now. That's the show today. If you liked this video do press the like button and do subscribe to our channel and don't forget to press the bell icon so that you get notified every time there's a new video. Until next time, goodbye.


Air peace in Max Air may begin the evacuation of Nigerians from Ukraine on Wednesday. This was made known by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Jeffrey Ognema during a meeting with the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femig Bajabiamila. Ognema said the evacuation would be done following the approval of President Mohammad al-Buhari, with Ukraine still at war with Russia and no fly zone effective across the country. The evacuation is expected to take place from neighboring countries. Earlier the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said hundreds of Nigerians have been received in Poland, Hungary and Romania by Nigerian embassies in those countries.


It's Yukon King, swift as the strongest lead dog of the Northwest, blazing the trail for Sergeant Preston of the Northwest Mounted Police, in his relentless pursuit of lawbreakers. On King, on you huskies. Gold, gold discovered in Yukon, a stampede to the Klondike in the wild race for riches. Back to the days of the Gold Rush, with Sergeant Preston and his Wonder Dog, Yukon King, as they meet the challenge of the Yukon. Pierre Lamont was a big, good-natured trapper, who had a cabin on Beaver Run outside of Selkirk. Pierre was a friendly man, and not the type to keep his affairs to himself. Every time he paid a visit to town, he'd talk to anyone who would listen about his work and the progress he was making. One day, Pierre entered the store. As he stomp of snow from his feet, boomed out a greeting to the storekeeper, Mike Clancy, into the group of men lounging around the big store. Good afternoon, everybody. Hello, Pierre. It is good to get in out of the cold. Hi, Pierre. Catching much these days, Pierre. Oh, you just wait and see. Pierre, I was thinking of just about time you came in for more supplies. How are things up on Beaver Run these days? Oh, I am most satisfied, one of me.  What did you bring? A couple of Beaver skins? Oh, wait until you see, Mike. I shall open the package to show you. Now, wait. There. Oh, is this not a beauty, eh? A white fox skin. Say now that is a beauty. No mistake here. I'll pay you a top price, but all you can get me like that. I shall bring you plenty, Mike. There are many of them hanging in my drying shed. I leave the gold for the others to dig. While Pierre sets the traps, then sits in the warm cabin waiting for the skins to get themselves caught. You've got something there, Pierre.  Oh, we. I do not complain, Mike. This season I have already catched twice as many. Glory be. Maybe I ought to sell out my trading post and take the trap and so as to get rich quick. What do you have here? Oh, here is at least. Good. I'll get the stuff together for you right away. Well, there is no hurry, one of me. I shall spend maybe two, three hours at the café before I start back. And now I go to have the fun, eh, Mike? Goodbye. Goodbye, Pierre. Frenchie must do plenty good with this trep plan, eh, mister? Sure, and he makes more than most of these gold diggers around here. You can bet on that. What's more, you must be new around here, or you wouldn't go calling him Frenchie. Nobody in town ever calls Pierre that. He doesn't like it. That's what he is, and that's what I'll call him. Whether he likes it or not. Suit yourself, mister. But like I said, you must be new around here. Yeah, yeah, I got here a few days ago from Dawson with this fellow here. I'm Milo Craddock, and this is my friend Smitty. I'm glad you know both of you. My name is Mike Clancy, and as you probably know, I own this store. Maybe you'll be needing tools and supplies if you came here to stake a claim. Eh, we haven't decided what we want to do yet, have we, Smitty? No, but we'll have to do several soon if we don't want to run out of cash, Milo. Well, stop worrying, we'll get along. Eh, well, we'll stop in again, Mike. Come on, Smitty, let's go to the café for a while. Better keep in mind what I told you about Colin Pierre Frenchy. He's a mighty tough scrapper when it comes to a fight, mister. I'll be careful, Mike. Thanks for the tip. Let's go, Smitty. Milo and Smitty went to the café and sat at a secluded table. For a while they watched Pierre laughing and joking with some of the other men. Well, it is time I must go. Then, as Pierre went out, Milo spoke. We've decided on how we're going to get plenty of cash, Smitty. How? That Frenchman who just went out. Well, how do you figure that? You must have plenty of cured skins ready for selling in that dry and shed he is. We don't even know where his cabin is. Eh, you ought to pay attention like I do. I heard somebody at the store ask him how things are up on Beaver Run. So I figured that's where he's located. When do you plan to grab him? We'll wait until we see him heading out of town from the store. Then we'll get our dog team and trail him. We'll clean out the shed tonight while he's sleeping. Then head for Whitehorse with a furs. I know somebody there who will take him off our hands at a good price. Now, let's get out of here so we can see when Frenchy leaves town. Come on. On his way back to the store, Pierre met Sergeant Preston and his great dog, Yukon King. Oh, hello, dear. Glad to see you. Sergeant Preston! Hey, King! Oh, it is always good to see you both. I've been in Selkirk very long, Sergeant. A couple of days, Pierre. King and I are on patrol. We'll be leaving here in a day or two. You caught much this season? Oh, may we. I have many fine skins already. Some of them are white fox. White fox, eh? The severe weather must have driven them down this way. For such weather, then I am thankful. Oh, when I sell my furs this season, I shall get married to Marie Gaston de Widow. That's fine. Marie's just right for you, Pierre. She's doing very well running her boarding house. Oh, such onion soup my Marie can cook, Sergeant. Oh? Tomorrow she has told me to come for noon dinner. That I would not miss. Well, why don't you stay in town tonight instead of going back to Beaver Run? I did not know until I stopped on the way into town that Marie wanted me to come to dinner. It is not far to my cabin. I'll go there and return tomorrow with a white foxkin for Marie. She'll appreciate a gift like that. I must go now to get my supplies and take them home. Perhaps before you leave I shall see you again, Sergeant. And you too, King, eh? Goodbye, Sergeant. So long, Pierre. Give my regards to Marie. Come along, King. Pierre Lamont finally left town with his dog, sled and traveled the trail toward Beaver Creek, four miles away. When Smitty waited until he was out of sight, then they started with their dog team and followed Pierre's tracks. But they moved along the trail, Milo was saying... I'm hoping we'll be able to get to his shed without him here in us. What about his dogs? They'll raise a ragged, Milo. They'll stop before we get near the cabin and wait. Then I'll take some of that smoked caribou I brought along and throw it to his dogs. That'll keep them from barking when we bring our own dogs to the shed. I hope we don't have to wait too long, Milo. I like the cold. We'll find a spot to hold up until we're ready to grab the furs. Don't worry. I'd rather wait until he's sleeping so as to avoid trouble. They may stay up a long time. Well, I doubt it. Anyway, we'll wait long enough to make sure. We can afford to be a little cold for what we're going to get out of it. All right, mush you huskies. Come on, mush! When the two crooks came within sight of the cabin, they saw that the shed was some distance behind it. They stopped behind a ridge which protected them from the wind. Oh, you huskies! Well, well, look, Smitty. We won't have to wait. That shed is about a hundred feet behind the cabin. Yeah. Once you make sure the dogs will be quiet, we'll move in with our sled and get the furs. You wait here. I'll go ahead with the caribou and toss to his dogs. Then I'll wait for you. All right. Still light enough for me to see you, Wave. I'll go under the sled and circle around to the shed. Keep behind the ridge so you won't be seen by Frenchie and come along and back to the shed. All right, I'll make sure he don't see me in case he looks out the window. Now, you better get going. Inside the cabin, Pierre prepared a light supper. Then he was about to get ready for bed when he remembered something. Oh, my God. I've almost forgot to bring in the white fox skin to take to my mouth. The dogs, they must have caught you jack-grabbing back near the shed. They are snapping over something to eat. The dogs, which usually burrowed into a snow bank alongside the shed, were snapping over the dried caribou Milo had thrown to them. When he reached the pack, Pierre stopped them over and watched them. Then he noticed what they were scrapping over. Oh, that is no strange. These dried caribou they're eating. Get away! Get back there! Well, at least I do not understand it all. Look at the dogs get these caribou. The back door of the shed must have blown open. Well, like with the padlock on. Hmm. We'll go see about these strange business. Inside the shed, Milo and Smitty had heard Pierre speak to the dogs outside. They had broken the padlock to get in and had left the door slightly open. Smitty spoke in a low tone. Milo, did you hear that? French is coming this way. The door blew right up. I'm sure to come here now to investigate. Put out the lantern, please. All right. I now hurry. We'll get behind the pile of furs we left near the door. Come on. Down quick.  Let him come inside.  Here he comes. The pile of furs here near the door. There is something wrong. Yes, so there is French here. No, you will not. Stealing my furs, eh? That I shall not stand for. This French is a fighter. French here is a word I do not allow. Take this. Turn him around, Milo. I'll fix you. All right. I did it.  We better make sure he's out. Yeah, he's out cold. That French is sure as hard to handle. Are we going to get rid of him? No, he was putting a bullet in him, if that's what you mean. It was too dark in here for him to get a good look at either of us. Get away with the furs and leave him right where he fell. What if he comes too many times soon? No, don't worry. The fire in the stove here for drying the skins is almost out. Put the door wide open. He'll probably freeze before morning. Come on. Get busy loading those furs. While Pierre lay where he had fallen near the open door, Milo and Smitty carried out all the furs and loaded them on their slant. Finally, they were ready to leave. Smitty, we got them all loaded. He sure wasn't talking through his hat when he said he had some furs, Milo.  Left cash in our pockets again. Say, do you think we ought to carry the Frenchman into his cabin and leave him there? Why bother? Well, I've been thinking of what you said a while ago. If he lies there, morning he'll be frozen stiff. That's his hard luck. What if he does freeze to death? We'll be hunted for murder. Haven't you thought of that? What do you mean we'll be hunted for murder? Who's gonna know we were the ones who did it? If the money's come out here and pick up a trail.  How was anyone gonna pick up a trail in this snow? The tracks will be covered half an hour after we leave here. Yeah, I didn't think of that. But before we leave, we better make sure he's still unconscious. Come on. He's out for a long time. We got nothing to worry about. Look, as long as nobody will be able to follow us anyway, let's take him into cabin. It won't take us very long. Mitty, you must be getting soft. What do you care if he freezes? What makes you so squeamish? That's one thing nobody will ever say about you, Malo. I bet you'd watch your own brother die if you'd gain back. First, I don't have a brother. And second, if I had, he'd have to take his chances while I took mine. Every man for himself these days, so get wise to yourself. Come on. Let's get back to the sledge. Hey, uh, are you sure you've got all your belongings out of the board and house before we left? Uh-huh. Good. You know, that French woman Marie is going to raise the roof when she finds we skipped out without paying our rent. Hey, maybe she'll go to Monty's to report that. What if she does? That's the guys who jumped their room rent. Well, at least I ain't going to waste their time trailing somebody just where a few measly does. Stop worrying and get on the runners. I'm tired, sir. I'm going to ride the sledge. All right, Smitty. I'm plenty warm with all these furs covering me. Let's get going. Monsieur Husky! For some time after the two crooks had left with his valuable furs, Pierre lay unconscious on the floor of the shed. Finally, he stirred, and daisily got to his feet. No. His head is bursting. Pierre slowly staggered from the shed. He was almost numb with cold, and his one thought was to reach the warmth of the cabin. It's cold. I must get to the cabin. Let's find my furs. My furs are on the floor. Pierre tripped over one of the huskies that had burrowed in the snow. Immediately, the whole pack were snapping and snarling about here. Get back. Get down. This is the cabin. My burger. Slowly, he stumbled toward the cabin, and at last reached the door. What soup in the door? Stove. Once inside, he staggered to the bunk and fell apart. Let's bring you white fox. They took my furs. All of them. Now the white fox is all gone. All gone. Mumbling in a delirious way, Pierre tossed about for a few moments, and then once more, he lost consciousness. It was noon of the following day when Sergeant Preston, with King at his side, knocked on the door of Marie Gaston's boarding house. Hello, Marie. Sergeant Preston. Thanks. Come along, King. I knew Pierre would be here, and I wanted to say goodbye to him. But Pierre did not come, Sergeant. I did not think he would treat me so. Well, that's strange. I met him yesterday.  So? That is what he tells me also. Then he does not show up at all. I see that you're angry about it, but frankly, Marie, I'm a little worried. What? I know Pierre, and I know how he feels about you. From what he said, nothing could keep him away, except an accident. An accident? Oh, I did not think of that. Something has happened to my Pierre. Oh, Sergeant, you must do something. You must. Now, calm down, Marie. I shouldn't have put the idea into your mind. But now I am sure I feel inside of me that he has met with the accident. King and I will go to Pierre's cabin and find out why he didn't come to town today. I shall go with you. I could not stay here. Please, Sergeant. All right, Marie.  You'll be ready. Yes, yes, of course. I shall be ready. Do hurry. We'll be back as soon as possible. Come along, King. After getting his dog sled and team, Sergeant Preston returned and picked up Marie. And then, with King leading the pack, they started for Pierre's cabin. A light snow had begun to fall. By the time they arrived outside the cabin, theirs were the only tracks to be seen. I am coming in with you, Sergeant. Yes, of course. Let's go in. Come along, King. Sergeant is so worried. It doesn't matter. I'll try to latch. The door's unlocked. Come on. Jean-Luc, there's the bomb. Pierre is sick. Oh, you must not. You cannot steal my food. He's been hurt, Marie.  Oh, my poor Pierre. I'm delirious. Heat some water, Marie. Hurry. Yes, Sergeant. For a short time, Sergeant Preston and Marie worked in silence, giving first aid to the injured Pierre. Once Preston went out and then returned and spoke to Marie. He is resting easier now. Oh, that's good, Marie. I looked in the shed behind the cabin. All Pierre's furs are gone. That explains why someone attacked him. If I could get my hands on the thief who hurt my Pierre, I would strangle him. But, Sergeant, we must do something. I cannot stay here, yet Pierre must have attention. Can we not take him to town to my boarding house? He could ride this sled with me to hold him. Well, he should have a doctor look him over. All right, Marie, we'll take him to town. Help me put his park on him. All right. And we'll wrap him in a blanket and I'll carry him to the sled. Sergeant Preston and Marie made a quick trip back to town with the injured man. Pierre was made comfortable in a room at Marie's boarding house. At a short time later, the town doctor bent over him. Must not call me Frenchie. And I do not like... Must get the white fox for my Marie. What do you think, Doctor? He had developed a high fever, but the skull doesn't seem to be fractured. I need a certain drug, Sergeant. I'll write it down. Do you see if Mike has it at the trading post? Yes, of course. Ah, this is what I want. There. I'll go right over to Mike's now. Hey, Sergeant, I heard about Pierre. How is he? Still delirious, Mike. Here, the doctor wants this prescription. Sure, I'll have it for you in a jiffy. How did it happen, do you know? Someone stole Pierre's furs. I figure it took more than one man to rob him. Sure, he's plenty strong. He keeps muttering about being called Frenchie, for one thing. Frenchie? Said there were a couple of fellas in here yesterday asking about Pierre. Huh? One of them, a big man, used the name Frenchie when he spoke of Pierre. They seemed interested in his trap and all. They heard Pierre telling about how well he was doing. I see. They'll come to think of it. I learned they stopped at Marie's for a couple of nights, too. You could find out if they still have a room there. I'll do that, thanks. Here's the stuff the doc wants. Good. See you again, Mike. Goodbye, Sergeant. After delivering the prescription to the doctor, Sergeant Preston questioned Marie about the two men Mike had spoken of. Are they still living here, Marie? No, Sergeant. They live certainly and without paying me either. All I found in their room was an old sock. Good. But that is not good. What do you expect me to get for such a thing? Marie, I want that old sock. It may be the means of helping King and me capture those thieves. Oh, then I shall get it for you. They got and punished for what they did to Pierre. Don't worry. If those two with the men who hurt Pierre installed his furs, they'll be punished, I promise. After receiving the worn sock, Sergeant Preston and King stopped by to pick up the constable. Hi, Sergeant. What's up? Pierre Lamont was attacked and robbed of his cabin, Jim. The thieves got away with all his furs. Is that so? When did it happen, Sergeant? Sometime yesterday afternoon, I think. Did Pierre come into town? Did he come here to report the robbery? I went out there and brought him to town. He's embedded Marie's boarding house under the doctor's care. Got a bad blow in the head. I went out there with Marie a while ago to investigate after Pierre failed to keep a dinner appointment at Marie's.  I went back to his cabin to get a present for Marie. They found him delirious. That's bad. Have any idea who might have done it? Mike, the storekeeper, told me about two drifters at Pierre at the store yesterday. After they found out, he had the furs. Maybe we'd better pick them up for questioning. They've left town. They stayed two days at Marie's and left owing their board bill. And they might be the ones who robbed Pierre. That's what I think. Let's go out to Pierre's cabin and look things over, Jim. Sure. Wait till I get my park on. I doubt if they'd go very far in the storm last night. Well, I'm ready. Good. I have my dog team outside. Let's go, King. You ride the sled, Jim. All right. Up front, boy. All right. On King. On you, Husky. Sergeant Preston and the constable started out along the trail to Pierre's cabin with King leading the dog team. Preston was saying... If Pierre hadn't been as strong as he is, he might have died from the cold, if not from the blow he received. What do you hope to find when we reach the cabin, Sergeant? Hope to pick up the trail of the crooks, Jim. Sergeant, how do you expect to trail anybody now?  If the two men Mike told me about had anything to do with this, Jim, the sock they left behind will be all King needs to pick up their trail in spite of the snow. There's the cabin now. Yes. We'll soon find out if the sock's going to help. Oh, King, how are you? Let's go inside. Come on, King. Come on. Here, King.  Find them, King. Find. The great dog seemed puzzled. He sniffed around the cabin, with no signs of picking up the scent. And then he came and stood before his master, whining in puzzlement. Looks like that sock isn't going to be of any use after all. It means only one thing to me, Jim. If those two men did it, they didn't come into the cabin. What do we do now, Sergeant? We'll go out to the shed. Come along, King. A short time later, the two mouties stood just inside the shed, watching King. The intelligent dog once more sniffed the sock and then moved about for a moment in the shed. Then he barked loud. King swarmed the scent. It was the owner of that sock who came here. Find them, King. Find them. Come on, Jim. Look, King's over there. He's found something in the snow. A white fox pelt. They must have dropped it here when they loaded the sled. We'll get our dog team and take up their trail. Let's hurry. They have a good head start. Meantime, Milo and Smitty, the two crooks had traveled for several hours southward. Then they had stopped for food and rest at a deserted cabin along the trail. The following morning, seeing that snow was falling and had covered their trail, Milo decided there was no hurry in pushing on. We might as well put up here until we're sure the storm isn't going to get any worse, Smitty. Now that our trail is covered, nobody could find us anyway. Looks like luck is with us, Milo. That's right. We get plenty for those skins when we get the white horse. I don't go much for traveling in the snow and cold anyhow. Neither do I. We'll wait and see how the weather is this afternoon, and if it clears up, we'll set out around five o'clock. It's about three hours to the settlement of Bear Creek, so we get there after dark and won't attract attention. Then we could push on at dawn tomorrow. And now let's rustle up some more grub. I'm still hungry. The snow had stopped. At about five o'clock, the two crooks were preparing to leave the cabin when the door suddenly opened. Look, a couple of monies. I'll get one of them. As Smitty, wounded in the shoulder, reeled against him momentarily, Milo suddenly grabbed a wounded man using him as a shield while he faced the two mouties. You won't get me. Let me go. They'll plunk me again.  But if they don't, I'll get both of them. Let him go and drop your gun. You better shoot him to get me.  Both mouties hesitated as Milo watched them warily. It was against their code to shoot a wounded and unarmed man, such as Smitty, and yet with him as a shield, Milo might use his gun against them at any minute. I said to drop those guns, Milo. It was then that Sergeant Preston saw out of the corner of his eye a gray shadow moving along in the dimness near the cabin wall. It was the great dog King whom Milo hadn't seen. The intelligent dog had sensed that he must get to the man who was holding Smitty. Moving slowly and keeping low, King crept along until he was behind Milo. At that moment, Milo made a threatening gesture. Preston spoke. Well constable, we might as well drop our guns. King sprang. The force of his sudden and unexpected attack knocked Milo off balance. He dropped his hold on Smitty as the dog grabbed the desperate crook's gun arm. Help! Take him off! Get your gun, Jim. Quick. Got it, Sergeant. All right, down, King. Down for the watching boy. That dirty mutt hadn't got in here. Careful, you. King doesn't like to be called mutt any more than Pierre likes to be called Frenchie. You're under arrest in the name of the crown. Let's get these crooks and the furs back to Selkirk as soon as possible, Jim. Right.  Let's go. That's all right. Come on. The following morning, Sergeant Preston, the constable, Mike and King were beside Pierre's bed where Marie was fussing over him. Marie wore a beautiful, gleaming white pelt around her neck in spite of the warmth of the room. As she leaned over Pierre, she was saying... See, my Pierre, this beautiful white fox which you meant for me to have is at last brought to me. Oh, it is you who make it seem more beautiful, Marie. Oh, no, isn't that romantic, are you asking? But, of course, you see, Mike, romance is in the heart of everyone in France. Ah, get away with it, Colleen. It is the Irish who are the romantic souls, especially if there ain't a good fight going on at the time. You went through a lot just to prove his romantic nature, Mike, but at last Marie did get her white fox. We have to give King some of the credit for that, Sergeant. Oh, he's a beautiful king. For him, I also have much love. Look at that now. King is pleased as I'll get out to have Marie hugging him. I can understand that, Mike. Pierre is a very lucky man. He's well on the road to recovery. His fears have been returned and the crooks are in jail. Now, all I'm waiting for is to be best man at his wedding. Then this case will be closed. In our next adventure, a messenger has just arrived at the customs house at White Pass. With a report to the major in charge. Major? Yes? I have a message from Sergeant Preston. From Skagway? Yes, sir. There are a lot of crooks down there, crooks that you've turned back at the border. Tonight, they're going to force their way through the pass. Not this pass? No, sir. Chillcute. What? There are only two men on duty there. That's what the sergeant said. He's going to help them out, but they'll need reinforcements. There's no doubt of that. I only hope he can get them there in time. A hundred desperate men, greedy for gold, and determined to force their way into the Yukon are storming the Chillcute Pass. Only Sergeant Preston and two other members of the force are there to stop them. How long can they hold out against such odds? Don't miss this thrilling adventure tomorrow. These radio dramas, a feature of the challenge of the Yukon Incorporated, are created by George W. Trendle, produced by Trendle Campbell Enterprises, directed by Fred Flower Day and supervised by Charles D. Livingston. The part of Sergeant Preston is played by Paul Sutton. They are brought to you every Saturday and Sunday. This is J. Michael wishing you good bye and good luck until tomorrow. This is the Mutual Broadcasting System.