WHERE THE SUN SWINGS NORTH

by

BARRETT WILLOUGHBY

A. L. Burt CompanyPublishers ------ New YorkPublished by arrangement with G. P. Putnam's Sons

Printed in U. S. A. Copyright, 1922byFlorance Willoughby

This edition is issued under arrangement with the publishersG. P. Putnam's Sons, New York And London

TO

MY MOTHER

WHO CAN MAKE A TENT IN THE WILDERNESS

SEEM LIKE HOME

In this book I write of my own country and its people as I knowthem--not artfully, perhaps, but truthfully. 

BARRETT WILLOUGHBY. 

Katalla, Alaska. 

CONTENTS

PART I

CHAPTER

 I. --THE WHITE CHIEF OF KATLEEAN II. --THE CHEECHACO III. --THE LITTLE SQUAW WITH WHITE FEET IV. --BAIT V. --THE FUNERAL CANOES VI. --THE WHITE CHIEF MAKES MEDICINE VII. --THE POTLATCH DANCE VIII. --THE OUTFIT IX. --HARLAN WAKES UP X. --THE PIGEON

PART II

 XI. --THE ISLAND OF THE RUBY SANDS XII. --THE LANDING XIII. --THE CABIN XIV. --THE CASTAWAY XV. --THE GIANT BALLS OF STONE XVI. --THE STORM XVII. --THE MYSTERIOUS PRESENCE XVIII. --THE PERIL OF THE SURF XIX. --HOME MAKING XX. --GOLD XXI. --KOBUK XXII. --AT THE LONE TREE XXIII. --ELLEN XXIV. --MAROONED

PART III

 XXV. --ON RATIONS XXVI. --WINTER DAYS XXVII. --SPRING XXVIII. --THE CLEFT XXIX. --THE SECRET OF THE CLIFFS XXX. --THE PIGEON'S FLIGHT XXXI. --THE JUSTICE OF THE SEA XXXII. --BENEATH THE BLOOD-RED SUN XXXIII. --ANCHORS WEIGHED

WHERE THE SUN SWINGS NORTH

PART I

CHAPTER I

THE WHITE CHIEF OF KATLEEAN

It was quiet in the great store room of the Alaska Fur and TradingCompany's post at Kat-lee-an. The westering sun streaming in through aside window lighted up shelves of brightly labeled canned goods and along, scarred counter piled high with gay blankets and men's roughclothing. Back of the big, pot-bellied stove--cold now--that stoodnear the center of the room, lidless boxes of hard-tack and crackersyawned in open defiance of germs. An amber, mote-filled ray slantedtoward the moss-chinked log wall where a row of dusty fox and wolverineskins hung--pelts discarded when the spring shipment of furs had beenmade, because of flaws visible only to expert eyes. 

At the far end of the room the possessor of those expert eyes satbefore a rough home-made desk. There was a rustle of papers and heclosed the ledger in front of him with an air of relief. He clappedhis hands smartly. Almost on the instant the curtain hanging in thedoorway at the side of the desk was drawn aside and a small, brownfeminine hand materialized. 

"My cigarettes, Decitan. "

The man's voice was low, with that particular vibrant quality oftenfound in the voices of men accustomed to command inferior peoples onthe far outposts of civilization. 

The curtain wavered again and from behind the folds a brown arm, bareand softly rounded, accompanied the hand that set down a tray ofsmoking materials. 

With a careless nod toward his invisible servitor, the man picked up acigarette and lighted it. He took one long, deep pull. Tossing itaside he swung his chair about and faced the open doorway that gave ona courtyard and the bay beyond. 

He readjusted the scarlet band about his narrow hips. Flannel-shirted, high-booted, he stretched his six-foot length in the tilting chair andclasped his hands behind his head. The movement loosened a lock ofblack hair which fell heavily across his forehead. His eyes, long, narrow and the color of pale smoke, drowsed beneath brows that metabove his nose. Thin, sharply defined nostrils quivered under theslightest emotion, and startling against the whiteness of his face, wasa short, pointed beard, black and silky as a woman's hair. When PaulKilbuck, the white trader of Katleean, smiled, his thin, red lipsparted over teeth white and perfect, but there was that in the long, pointed incisors that brought to mind the clean fangs of a wolf-dog. 

He closed his pale eyes now and smiled to himself. His work on theCompany's books was finished for the present. He hated the pettydetails of account keeping, but since the death of old Add-'em-up Sam, his helper and accountant, who had departed this world six monthsbefore during a spell of delirium tremens, the trader had been obligedto do his own. 

Queer and clever things had Add-'em-up done to the books. Down in SanFrancisco the directors of the Alaska Fur and Trading Company had longsuspected it no doubt, but it was not for nothing that Paul Kilbuck wasknown up and down the coast of Alaska as the White Chief. No other manin the North had such power and influence among the Thlinget tribes. No other man sent in such quantities of prime pelts; hence the WhiteChief of Katleean had never been obliged to give too strict anaccounting of his stewardship. Taking what belongs to a company isnot, in the elastic code of the North, considered stealing. "God ishigh above and the Czar is far away, " said the plundering, roisteringold Russians of Baranoff's day, and the spirit in the isolated postshad not changed, though Russian adventurers come no more to rape Alaskaof her riches, and the Stars and Stripes now floats over the old-timeRussian stronghold at Sitka. 

For eighteen years Kilbuck had been the agent of the Company. Intrading-posts up and down the coast where the trappers and prospectorsgather to outfit, many tales of the White Chief were afloat: his tripsto the Outside[1]; his lavish spending of money; his hiring of privatecars to take him from Seattle to New York; his princely entertainmentof beautiful women. In every story told of Paul Kilbuck there werewomen. Sometimes they were white, but more often they were duskybeauties of the North. 

Among the several dark-eyed Thlinget women who occupied the mysteriousquarters back of the log store, there was always rejoicing when theWhite Chief returned from his visits to the States. He was a generousmaster, bringing back with him many presents from the land of the whitepeople--rings, beads, trinkets, and yards of bright colored silks. Thefavorites of his household fondled these gifts for a time with soft, guttural cries of delight and gentle strokings of their slim, brownhands, and then laid them away in fantastically carved Indian chests ofyellow cedar. 

Perhaps the strangest of these gifts had been a pair of homing pigeons, which had thrived and multiplied under the care of Add-'em-up Sam. Afluttering of wings now outside the doorway bespoke the presence ofsome of them, and Kilbuck stirred in his chair and opened his eyes. 

He had been many hours alone in the store, but he had been prepared forthat today. The entire post of Katleean was getting ready for thePotlatch, an Indian festival scheduled for the near future. For thisoccasion Kayak Bill, in his carefully secreted still across the lagoon, had completed a particularly potent batch of moonshine, known locallyas hootch. The arrival, earlier in the afternoon, of the jocose oldhootch-maker with a canoe-load of his fiery beverage, had been a signalfor a gathering at his cabin across the courtyard. From the soundsthat now floated out on the late afternoon air, he must already havedistributed generous samples of his brew. 

The White Chief rose from his chair and reached for another cigarette. As usual, he tossed it away after one long, deep inhalation. Beforethe smoke cleared from his head, he was crossing the store room withhis easy panther tread--the result of former years of moccasin-wearing. 

In the open doorway he paused, leaned against the portal and hooked onethumb beneath his scarlet belt. His narrow eyes swept the scene beforehim. Across the bay, between purple hills, a valley lay dreaming inrose-lavender mist. Blue above the August haze was a glimpse of aglacier, and farther back, peaks rose tier upon tier in the vague, amethystine distance. 

Suddenly the quiet beauty was shot through with the sound of loudvoices and snatches of song issuing from the cabin of Kayak Bill. Thetrader listened with a smile that was half a sneer. He himself neverdrank while at the post, deeming that it lessened his influence withthe Indians. But among the secrets of his own experience were memoriesof wild days and nights aboard visiting schooners, at the end of whichprone in the captain's bunk, he had lain for hours in alcoholicoblivion. 

The voices from the cabin ceased abruptly. Then like the bellow of afog horn on a lonely northern sea came Kayak Bill's deep bass:

 "Take me north of old Point Barrow Where there ain't no East or West; Where man has a thirst that lingers And where moonshine tastes the best; Where the Arctic ice-pack hovers 'Twixt Alaska and the Pole, And there ain't no bloomin' fashions To perplex a good man's soul. "

There was a momentary pause followed by a hubbub of masculine voicesapparently in a dispute as to how the song should run. High above theothers rose a squeaky Scandinavian protest:

"By yingo, ven ay ban cook on _Soofie Suderlant_ ve sing it so _dis_vay----"

"Close yore mouth, Silvertip. " As a whale would swallow a minnow soKayak Bill's drawling tones engulfed the thin, high accents of theone-time cook of the _Sophie Sutherland_. "I ain't no nature forSwedes a-devilin' o' me. I been singin' that song for nigh on to tenyars, and by the roarin' Jasus, I reckon I know how to sing it. Comeon boys--now all together!"

Joining the again raised bass of Kayak Bill, several voices took up therollicking strain, among them the high, easily recognizable tenor ofSilvertip, and the voice of another, a baritone of startling mellownessand purity, having in it a timbre of youth and recklessness:

 "Up into the Polar Seas, Where the Innuit maidens be, There's a fat, bright-eyed va-hee-ney A-waitin' there for me. She's sittin' in her igloo cold, Chewing on a muckluck sole, And the sun comes up at midnight From an ice-pack round the Pole. "

At the sound of the baritone, the White Chief hitched his shoulderswith a movement of satisfaction. Add-'em-up Sam's successor, thebookkeeper, was bidding fair to follow in the sodden footsteps of hispredecessor. Given a little more time and this baritone-singing_cheechako_[2] would be where the White Chief need have no anxiety asto the accounts rendered the Company's new president, whom Kilbuck hadnever seen. A little more time, a little more hootch, and he wouldalso have settled the case of Na-lee-nah. 

The thought of the Thlinget girl's soft brown eyes brought a momentarypang. The white plague permitted few native women to become old. Twice now Naleenah had lost her voice, and only last night he hadnoticed behind her soft, her singularly beautiful little ears, thepeculiar drawn look that to his practiced eye spelled tuberculosis. She would last two years more, perhaps, but in the meantime he mustprotect himself--he stirred uneasily. The bookkeeper must be made totake her off his hands. 

His musing was broken into by another burst of song:

 "Oh-o-o-o! I am a jolly rover And I lead a jolly life! I have my hootch and salmon And a little squaw to wife. "

Simultaneously the door of Kayak Bill's cabin opened and the owner, atatterdemalion figure, stood for a moment on the doorstep. Stretchinghis arms above his head, he yawned prodigiously, and then, espyingKilbuck, sauntered across the courtyard toward him. 

An old sombrero curved jauntily on red-grey hair that was overly long. A wavy beard of auburn-grey spread over the front of his blue flannelshirt. Hanging loosely from his shoulders a hair-seal waistcoat, brightly trimmed with red flannel, served as a coat above faded blueoveralls, and from the knees down Kayak Bill was finished off with hiprubber boots, the turned-down tops of which flapped with every step, lending a swashbuckling air to his rolling gait. 

He seated himself leisurely on the steps below the platform in front ofthe trading-post door. 

"By hell, Chief, " he drawled, drawing a huge clasp-knife from hispocket, "I been grazin' on this here Alasky range nigh on to twentyyars, and so help me Hannah, I never did find a place so wild or abunch o' hombres so tough but what sooner or later all hands startsa-singin' o' the female sect. " With a movement of his thumb Kayak Billreleased the formidable blade of the knife, and nonchalantly, dexterously, began using it as a toothpick. 

"Yas, " he said slowly, in answer to the other's silence, "a-talkin' anda-singin' o' women and love. . . . Now, I hearn tell a heap about loveand women in my time, but neither o' them things has affected my heartever, though one time a spell back, tobaccy did. Still, Chief, withall respects to yore sentiments regardin' them Chocolate Drops whatinhabits yore harem, . . . Still, it sort o' roils me up to hear awhite man a-talkin' and a-singin' o' takin' a squaw to wife. "

There was an involuntary contraction of the hand that was hooked underPaul Kilbuck's belt. Not another man from Dixon's Entrance to PointBarrow would have dared to hint at the White Chief's domesticarrangements in that gentleman's hearing, but there was something inthe soft twinkle of Kayak Bill's hazel eye, something in the crude, whimsical philosophy distilled in the old hootch-maker's heart, thatamused, while it piqued the trader at Katleean. He sat down now on thesteps beside his visitor. 

"Kayak, " he said, almost gently, "when an old fellow like you begins totalk about squaws I have to smile. A man past sixty--! But how abouttwenty-five years ago? . . . What's a man going to do when he findshimself on the edge of the wilderness and--he wants a woman?"Kilbuck's voice rose slightly, his black brows drew together over thepale, unseeing eyes that sought the distant peaks, his thin nostrilsquivered. "It's a wild country up here, Kayak. Makes a man hunger forsomething soft and feminine--and where's the pale-faced woman who wouldfollow a man into this--" He finished his sentence with a wave of hishand. "That is a woman one would marry, " he amended. "The averagefemale of that country down south has no spirit of adventure in hermake-up. "

Kayak Bill closed his clasp-knife, restored it to his pocket and slowlydrew forth an ancient corn-cob pipe. 

"Wall, Chief, " he drawled presently between puffs, "I ain't a-sayin'yore not right, seein' as you've had consid'able more experience withpetticoats than me; but one time I hearn a couple o' scientific dudesa-talkin' about females and they was of the notion that sons gets theirbrains and their natures from their mammies. " Disregarding thecontemptuous sound uttered by the White Chief, Kayak's slow tonesflowed on: "And I'm purty nigh pursuaded them fellows is right. . . . Take it down in Texas now, where I was drug up. I'm noticin' a heap o'times how the meechinest, quietest little old ladies has the rarin'est, terrin'-est sons, hell-bent on fightin' and adventure. . . . Kinderseems to me, Chief, that our women has been bottled up so long by usmen folks they just ain't had no chance to strike out that way, exceptby givin' o' their natures to their sons. You take any little gal, Chief, a-fore they get her taken with the notion that it ain'tlady-like to fight, and by hell, she can lick tar outen any boy hersize in the neighborhood. Same way with she-bears, or a huskie bitch. Durned if they don't beat all get-out when it comes to fightin'courage!"

Kayak Bill drew once or twice on his pipe with apparentlyunsatisfactory results, for he slowly removed his sombrero, drew abroom-straw from inside the band, extracted the stem of the corn-coband ran the straw through it. The immediate vicinity becameimpregnated with a violent odor of nicotine. The White Chief, however, musing close by on the steps, seemed not to notice it. His eyes werefixed on three Indian canoes being paddled in from the lagoon acrossthe bay which was now taking on the opalescent tints of the late Alaskasunset. 

"What I been a-sayin' goes for the white women, Chief. As for themChocolate Drops--wall, I ain't made up my mind exactly. 'Pears to meif I ever went a-courtin' though, it would be just like goin'a-huntin': no fun in it if the end was certain and easy-like. Barrin'the case of Silvertip and Senott, his squaw, it's like this: you say'Come, ' and they come. You say 'Go, ' and they go. Now, a white womanain't that way. By the roarin' Jasus, you never can tell which wayshe's goin' to jump!" Kayak Bill held the stem of his pipe up to thelight and squinted through it, fitted it again into the bowl and gavean experimental draw. "But everybody to his own cemetery, says I. "

"Bill, you old reprobate, you have an uncanny way of picking the weakspots in everything. There's some truth in that last. . . . Gad, I'dlike to get into a game of love with a woman of my own blood up here inthe wilderness! . . . There's never been a white woman in Katleean. It would be great sport to see one up against it here, eh, Kayak?" TheWhite Chief turned, smiling, and the light in his pale, narrow eyesmatched the wolfish gleam of his sharp teeth. 

The face of the old hootch-maker was hidden in a smoke cloud, but hisvoice drawled on as calmly as ever: "Wall, from what I hearn tell whenI'm over at the Chilcat Cannery, Chief, you may get a chance to see awhite woman at Katleean purty soon. There's a prospector namedBoreland a-cruisin' up the coast in his own schooner, the _Hoonah_, andfrom what I can make out he's got his wife and little boy with him. "

The trader turned sharply. Like a hungry wolf scenting quarry heraised his head. There was a keener look in his eye. His thinnostrils twitched. 

"A _white_ woman, Kayak? Are you sure?"

Before Kayak Bill could answer there came an extra loud burst of songfrom the cabin across the courtyard. The door had been flung wide andin the opening swayed the arresting figure of the leader of the wildchorus. 

[1] Name by which the States is designated in the North. 

[2] Newcomer. 

CHAPTER II

THE CHEECHAKO

He was young and tall and slight, with a touch of recklessness in hisbearing that was somehow at variance with the clean-cut lines of hisface. He stood unsteadily on the threshold, hands thrust deep in thepockets of his grey tweed trousers, chin up-tilted from a strong, barethroat that rose out of his open shirt. As the singing inside thecabin ceased, he shook back the tumbled mass of his brown hair andalone his mellow baritone continued the whaler's song:

 "Up into the Polar Seas, Where the greasy whalers be, There's a strip of open water Reaching north to eighty-three----"

The White Chief, with his eyes on the singer, spoke to Kayak Bill. 

"Our gentleman-bookkeeper takes to your liquid dynamite like an Eskimoto seal oil, Kayak. He's been at Katleean three months now, and I'llbe damned if he's been sober three times since he landed. Seems to behitting it up extra strong now that the Potlatch is due--" Kilbucklowered his voice--"I want nothing said to him of the prospector andhis white wife, _understand_?"

At the dictatorial tone flung into the last sentence there came anarrowing of the old hootch-maker's eyes. It was seldom that PaulKilbuck spoke thus to Kayak Bill. 

The singer was crossing the courtyard now with steps of exaggeratedcarefulness. Suddenly he paused. His dark eyes, in vague, alcoholicmeditation, sought the distant peaks stained with the blush-rose ofsunset. The evening-purple of the hills fringed the bay with mystery. Gulls floated high on lavender wings, their intermittent plaintanswering the Indian voices that drifted up from the beach where thecanoes were landing. 

Kayak Bill moved over on the step, indicating the space beside him. 

"Come along side o' me, son, and get yore bearin's!" he called. 

"Yes, Harlan, stop your mooning and come here. I want to talk to you. "

Gregg Harlan turned, and the smile that parted his lips, though born ina liquor-fogged brain, was singularly winning. 

"Chief, " his words came distinctly but with careful deliberation, "anoutsider would think--that I am--a--fellow of rare--judgment ands-sound phil-os-ophy from the way--you're always--wanting totalk--to--me. "

He advanced and seated himself on the steps near the base of theflag-pole, leaning heavily against it. The gay recklessness that isthe immediate effect of the fiery native brew of the North wasevidently wearing away, and preceding the oblivion that was fast comingupon him, stray glimpses of his past, bits of things he had read orheard, and snatches of poetry flashed on the screen of his mind. 

"It doesn't go with me--Chief. Don't--bring on--your--littleforest--maiden--Naleenah--again. Tired--hearing about--her. Know--what you say: Up here--my people--never know. _Me_--a squaw man!Lord! What do I want--with--a squaw?" He laughed as at some blurredvision of his brain. "It's not that--I'm so damned virtuous, Chief. But I'm--fas-fas-tid-ious. That's it--fastidious----"

Paul Kilbuck's eyes flashed a cold steel grey. "We'll see howfastidious you'll be a year from now. " His lip lifted on one sideexposing a long, pointed tooth. "That'll be enough, now, Harlan. "

"Sure, 's enough--for me, Chief, " admitted the young man with drowsygood nature, as his tousled head sought a more comfortable placeagainst the flagpole. "Pardon--casting aspersions--on your--taste inwomen, Chief. Wouldn't do--it--if sober. Hate to be sober. Makes mefeel--re-responsible for so--many things. . . . Hence flowing bowl. 'Member old Omar--unborn Tomorrow and dead--Yesterday. . . . Why fret'bout it--if--if--today--be--sweet. " His voice trailed off in a murmurand his boyish chin with its look of firmness despite his dejection, sank slowly on his breast. 

The canoes had made a landing. A dozen or more Thlinget women camestraggling up the beach laden with the fruits of their afternoonlabors: gay-colored baskets of wild strawberries, red and fragrant fromthe sand-dunes along the lagoon. From the Indian Village, a shortdistance down the curve of the beach where the smokes of evening fireswere rising, a welcoming buck or two came to accompany the softlylaughing squaws. 

Slightly in advance of the shawled figures moving toward the group onthe steps walked one whose slenderness and grace marked her from therest. A scarlet shawl splashed the cream of her garments. Unlike theother women, she wore no disfiguring handkerchief on her head. Herface, oval and creamy-brown, was framed by two thick braids that fellover her shoulders. In the crook of her arm rested a basket ofberries. At her side, rubbing against her now and then, came apowerful huskie, beautiful with the lean grace of the wolf andpaw-playing as a kitten. 

"Mush on, [1] Kobuk! Mush--you!" She laughed, pushing him aside as sheadvanced. 

When she smiled up at the white men her face was lighted by long-lashedchildish eyes, warm and brown as a sun-shot pool in the forest. 

The White Chief rose. With an imperious gesture he motioned the otherIndians back. 

"_Ah cgoo_, Naleenah! Come here!" In rapid, guttural Thlinget hespoke to the girl, pointing from time to time to the now unconsciousHarlan. 

As she listened the smile faded from her face. Her smooth browpuckered. . . . She turned troubled eyes to Kayak Bill, sittingsilent, imperturbable, in a cloud of tobacco smoke, his interestapparently fixed where the slight breeze was ruffling the eveningradiance of the water. 

Still mutely questioning, Naleenah glanced at the figure of the youngwhite man, slumped in stupor against the flag-pole. . . . A look ofunutterable scorn distorted her face. Then she looked up at the WhiteChief shaking her head in quick negation. 

At her rebellion Kilbuck's voice shot out stingingly like the lash of awhip. With a hurt, stunned expression the girl shrank back. Her shawlshivered into a vivid heap about her feet. The basket of berriesslipped unheeded to the sand, their wild fragrance scenting the airabout her. 

While he was still speaking she started forward, her wide, idolatrouseyes raised to his, her little berry-stained hands held outbeseechingly. 

"No--no, Paul!" Anguish and pleading were in her broken English. "No, no! I can not do! Too mooch, too mooch I loof you, Paul!" Brimmingtears overflowed and rolled slowly down her cheeks. 

Kayak Bill rose hastily and stalked across the platform into the store. The White Chief turned away with tightening lips, but there was nosoftening in his smoke-colored eyes. It would be to his interest tohave his bookkeeper a squaw-man. The old Hudson Bay Company factorshad proved the advantage of having their employees take Indian women. For his own health's sake he must get rid of Naleenah. The tuberculargirl would live longer in the house of a white man than with her ownpeople, where he would soon be forced to send her. He was, therefore, doing her a kindness in turning her over to Harlan. 

He lighted a cigarette, inhaled a deep draught, and tossing thescarcely burned weed away, crossed deliberately to the huddled figureof Gregg Harlan. He shook him by the shoulder. 

"Wake up!" he ordered, "and go to your bunk. "

From Kayak Bill's cabin doorway several men drifted curiously towardthe store steps. The natives gathered closer. 

The bookkeeper raised his head and passed a slow hand over bewilderedeyes. 

"Beg--pardon, Chief, " he said quickly, as he rose on unsteady legs, "making sleeping porch--of your--steps. . . . Awf-lly tired. . . "Wavering, he clung for support to the flag-pole. 

With a peremptory gesture Kilbuck motioned to Naleenah. 

"Take this man to his cabin, " he snapped, "and--" he pausedsignificantly, "remember what I have told you. "

The girl came forward with drooping head and listless arms. She pauseddully beside the flag-pole. The trader placed the arm of the stupefiedyoung man across her slim shoulders. Obediently she led her chargeaway in the direction of the small cabins across the courtyard. 

Though the eyes of the spectators had been intent on the drama of thesteps, only Kayak Bill, perhaps, knew its real significance. The oldman now stood in the doorway of the store, his sombrero pushed to theback of his head, a pair of binoculars held against his eyes. 

From around the point beyond the Indian Village and into the bay, awhite-sailed schooner had drifted. As it advanced there was waftedacross the water a faint and silvery fragment of melody which enduredbut a moment and was gone. 

The White Chief turned his back on the courtyard and for the first timenoted Kayak Bill's attitude. He followed the direction of the oldman's gaze and beheld the incoming vessel just as the white men andIndians behind him broke out in a babble of interest and curiosity. 

There floated inshore the rattle of the windlass letting go the anchorchain. On the deck of the schooner men ran about as the sails werelowered. The vessel swung gently until the bow headed into the currentof the incoming tide. 

"Get out the canoe, Silvertip, " ordered the trader, turning to hishenchman, "and take Swimming Wolf with you. Find out who's----"

He broke off, wondering, incredulous, for at that moment across thewater came the golden singing of a violin. Wonderfully low and tenderit began. Swelling, it rose and soared and trembled, then withlingering, chorded sweetness died away like the exquisite music of adream. 

The listeners on the shore stood spellbound. Gregg Harlan, swaying inthe doorway of his cabin, steadied himself while the silvery harmonystole into his clouded senses. 

"Strange--strange, " he muttered, "a violin--playing like that--inKatleean. Dreams--more--dreams--" He stumbled into the room and theweeping Indian girl guided his footsteps to the narrow bunk in thecorner. 

In the after-sunset light that precedes the long Alaskan twilight thereis some rare quality that seems to bring nearer objects on the water. Kayak Bill in the doorway, took another long look through the glasses, then stepped down to the White Chief's side. His voice was the firstto break the enchanted silence that followed the strains of the violin. 

"That wind-jammer's the _Hoonah_ I been a-tellin' you of, Chief, " hedrawled, holding out the binoculars. "There's two women aboard o' her, instead o' one. 'Pears to me like one o' them's purty young, and it'sher that's standin' in the stern a-playin' o' the fiddle. "

[1] Corruption of the French _marchez_, _marche_, which the Canadian_coureurs du bois_ used to shout to their dogs, meaning to go forward, advance. 

CHAPTER III

THE LITTLE SQUAW WITH WHITE FEET

The morning after the arrival of the schooner, Gregg Harlan woke withan aching head and trembling limbs. As he sat on the edge of his bunkholding his fingers against his throbbing temples, he made a mental vowthat he would drink no more of Kayak Bill's liquor; that _today_ hewould settle down to the business that had brought him to Katleean. Hehad made the same vow every morning since his landing--made itearnestly, intending to keep it, but there was something in the air ofthe trading-post that made irresistible the reckless camaraderieengendered by the hootch-cup; something that emphasized that veryquality of gay irresponsibility he had come North to lose. 

The stale, close air of his little cabin sent waves of nausea throughhim. Hatless and coatless he sought the open air. He turned his stepsinstinctively toward the point beyond the Indian Village. On the otherside, screened from sight of the post, he was accustomed to take thedaily plunge in the bay that enabled him to throw off the immediateeffects of his hard drinking. 

As he stumbled along, his lack-lustre eyes rested but a moment on theschooner in the bay. He had not been long enough away from the worldto be other than faintly interested in the arrival, and hisrecollections of the night before were nil. 

The tide was low. The fresh, keen scent of seaweed came up from thePoint refreshing his sickened senses. Noisy gulls wheeled and tiltedover the brown, kelp-covered rocks and on the ridge back of the Indiangraveyard, ravens answered the gull cries with raucous soliloquies. 

He was nearing the Point when his eye was attracted by a splash ofwhite among the boulders. Something peculiar in its outline drew hisinquiring steps. At the sound of crunching gravel under his feet agreat huskie dog rose almost from under him. The young man sprangaside with a startled exclamation. Against the wet sand the dog's darkcoat had been practically invisible. 

"Heavens, Kobuk, old boy! I thought I was seeing things!"

He passed a damp hand over his brow. The dog, strangelyundemonstrative, advanced and placed a sleek head against Gregg's knee, its pointed muzzle down, its tail hanging dispiritedly. Vaguelywondering what the trader's favorite lead-dog was doing among theboulders on the Point, Harlan patted the animal's broad back and turnedto the object that had attracted his attention. 

What he had at first taken to be seaweed was a mass of long dark hair. Beneath it a damp, clinging cream-colored garment outlined the deadbody of an Indian girl. 

"God!" came Gregg's awed whisper, as he bent above the pitiful littleheap. "The White Chief's Naleenah! . . . Poor little devil!"

Steadied by the tragedy he did not understand, he stooped and gatheredup the still form. He started back to the trader's quarters, littledreaming that the last earthly act performed by those small hands nowso still, had been for himself. But if Kobuk, following close at hisheels, could have spoken, he would have told of the manner of hergoing, the night before. 

The trading-post of Katleean had lain wrapped in moonlight and slumberwhen Naleenah, after obeying her master's instructions to the extent ofmaking the drunken young white man comfortable, crept from the doorwayof Harlan's cabin. Kobuk, waiting outside for the mistress who had fedhim since puppy days, pressed closely to her side as she crossed thecourtyard. 

At the beachline, where silvered rice-grass grew tall among the pilesof whitened driftwood, she paused, looking with wistful eyes toward theIndian Village cuddled in the crescent curve of the beach. The weird, ghostly totems of her people rose above the roofs, catching themoonbeams fearfully on their mystic carvings. Stern and forbiddingthey seemed, as if guarding the quiet shelters at their feet againstone who had forsaken them for the more luxurious cabins of the whiteman. . . . Slowly she turned from the tribal emblems of her clan tolook back at the log trading-post, dim and softly grey and splashedwith shadows. . . . So still she stood and so long, that the dog grewrestless and rubbed his cold nose against her hand. She sighed, atired, quivering sigh like that of a child who has been hurt, and withbowed head, stumbled along the trail that led down to the water. 

Over a dark line of hills glowed the glorious red-gold orb of_Sha-hee-yi_, The-Moon-When-All-Things-Make-Their-Winter-Homes. Unbelievably large and round and clear it stood out against thenight-blue, throwing a path of shimmering gold across the bay to herlittle feet. With eyes raised to its splendor, she waded out slowly, steadily, into the moonlit, whispering waves. . . . 

At the edge of the beach Kobuk settled on his haunches, watching herwith questioning, side-turned head. He whined uneasily. 

The scarlet shawl slipped from her shoulders and floated off behindher. . . . The water crept above her waist . . . Her shoulders. Herwide-eyed, frightened face caught the light. . . . Then the ripplesclosed above her head. A moment later her long hair, loosed from itsbraids, swayed on the amber-lighted surface like seaweed, then themoonpath lay quiet as before. 

On the shore Kobuk waited, his slant eyes blinking at the moon. Occasionally he raised his pointed nose and uttered a muffled whinethat ended in a short, querulous yelp. . . . Hours passed. . . . Thetide began to ebb, leaving a dark line of sand at the edge of thewater. . . . After a long while Kobuk went in search of his mistress, and having found her, watched beside her until Harlan came and bore heraway. 

As the young man ascended the steps to the store platform he was dimlyaware of encountering a tall, dark stranger, who afterward proved to bethe owner of the schooner that had come in the evening before. ShaneBoreland, whose figure was blocking the doorway, stepped aside to letGregg pass into the building with his burden. 

From about the stove, where several men were already gathered, came lowexclamations, and the White Chief, who had been following Boreland tothe door, stopped suddenly at the sight of Harlan. His face went ascold and emotionless as that of the dead girl. 

"Take her in to Decitan, " he said shortly, with a gesture toward hisquarters back of the store. Turning on his heel, he walked out to theplatform where Boreland stood waiting. 

"A damned sad ending to their little domestic difficulty, " he murmuredsoftly, as befitted one with a large heart and a kindly understandingof the follies of youth. "But young Harlan, my bookkeeper, hasn't beenlong enough in the North to appreciate the intensity of these littlehot-blooded savages. I told him, when he took Naleenah, . . . " TheChief, as if he had said too much, let his sentence trail off intosilence. He shook his head in apparent sorrow, but his eyes were fixedon the schooner that rode at anchor in the bay. 

"But don't let this incident mar your arrival, Boreland, " Paul Kilbuckwent on, and then, with the frontier heartiness he knew so well how toassume, he set about tendering Boreland the hospitality of the post, urging the prospector to bring his family ashore for a visit during thetime of the coming Potlatch. This was a festival, he assured themaster of the _Hoonah_, which could not fail to interest Mrs. Borelandand her younger sister. 

Even as the trader planned for the reception of the white women, thesquaws who had borne him children were preparing the body of littleNaleenah for its resting place below the ridge where the grave-housesand totems of the Thlinget dead huddled among the wild celery bushes. 

Quietly that night, just before moon-set she was laid away so that herfuneral might cast no sadness on the coming visitors. On the grave, the silent women of the household placed the treasures that had beendear to the heart of the White Chief's favorite: a string of cheapbeads, a scarlet shawl, gaudy painted cup and two dead pigeons, progenitors of the flock that now cooed and fluttered in and out of thehigh wire enclosure back of the store. 

A week later on the ridge above the new-made grave of Naleenah, a whitegirl stood talking to a small boy by her side. Above theamber-freckled nose of the youngster wide grey eyes were raised ineager coaxing to her face. From the crown of his bare head, a lock ofdark red hair trembling with absurd earnestness stood up from the massof its fellows. 

"Oh, Je-an! _Don't_ put on your shoes and stockings just yet! Let'shave one more story before we go back to the post. P-l-e-a-s-e, AuntieJean!"

Jean Wiley dropped to the ground a bundle made of her discardedfootwear. Earlier in the afternoon her nephew's barefoot enjoyment ofthe beach sand had enticed her to remove her own shoes and stockings, and delighting in the feel of the cool earth against her pink soles, she had not replaced them when they decided to follow the trail to theridge. She tossed her head, and even in the sunless afternoon, thedark mass of hair that tumbled down her back seemed shot through withglints of copper. 

"_I_ wouldn't mind going without them always, Loll, " she said, holdingout a slim foot and contemplating the freedom of her five, wriggling, perfect toes. "But--" the foot took its place beside its stationarytwin, "you see, little man, it isn't done at my age, even in Katleean. "Her long-lashed hazel eyes, full of the dreams of eighteen happy years, laughed down at the boy, and her slender fingers, that could coax suchtender harmonies from the strings of a violin, busied themselves withthe ribbon that bound the hair at the back of her neck. 

It was one of the lavender dream-days peculiar to the late summer ofthe North. Faint wisps of colorful mist clung to the pickets of thesmall fences in the Indian burial-place below them. The totems and thewindows of the tiny grave-houses were filmed with it, and through thedim glass appeared vague glimpses of the kettles, blankets andprovision inside the houses of the dead--material comforts which theThlinget Indians provide for the departed soul's journey over theSpirit Trail to the Ghost's Home. On the quiet bay below, the_Hoonah_, blurred in mist, tugged gently at her anchor. Some hundredyards to the left smoke from the trading-post rose above the aldertrees. 

"This is a dandy place for story-telling, Jean. See!" Little LaurenceBoreland pointed to the dim-limned schooner. "The _Hoonah_ looks likea ghost-ship out there. Listen! I'll tell you the story Kayak Billscared me most to death with last night. Ugh! It's spooky, Jean!"The boy's eyes were round and his voice had lowered at the rememberedthrills of terror. He tugged at the girl's short skirt, until she satdown beside him, tucking her slim bare feet beneath her as she preparedto listen. 

A raven, weird epitome of Thlinget myth and legend, croakedspasmodically from the white branch of a dead spruce behind them. Thedamp air had in it the freshness of new-cut hemlock boughs, a wild, vigorous fragrance that stirs the imagination with strange, illusivepromises of the wilderness. 

"And the door of the dead-house slowly opened, " Loll ended his tale, pointing to the graveyard below for local color, "and the doors-l-o-w-l-y opened and a long, white finger--a _bony_ finger, beckoned----"

He broke off with a gasp of astonishment and terror, for above the rankgrowth of Indian celery in front of the lonely grave-house door, therewas a sudden, unmistakable flutter of white. So thoroughly had thelittle fellow lost himself in the weird mysteries of his own creatingthat panic took possession of him, and communicated itself to the girlbeside him. They sprang to their feet, and with one accord racedtoward the trading-post. 

Near the courtyard their footsteps slackened, and Jean began to recoverherself, reminded of her shoes and stockings left behind on the knoll. She became suddenly ashamed of her headlong flight, precipitated, asshe now saw, by the first breath of afternoon breeze as it came in fromthe sea and fluttered a piece of weather-bleached canvas nailed overthe grave-house door. 

"Goodness, Loll, you frightened me nearly to death with your wildimaginings!" She laughed. "Let's run back now and get our shoes andstockings. "

The youngster laid a detaining hand on her arm. "But, Jean, " hisshrill voice trembled, "didn't you see it--the long, white skeletonfinger?"

"Nonsense!" She stood a moment pointing out the reason for the flutterof white, and as she did so a group of Indians landing from canoes onthe beach, came up the trail toward the post. Curiously and quicklythey gathered about the strangers. Many of them had never before seena white girl or boy, specimens of the strange Letquoan, the Snow Peoplefrom that far-away land of the White Chief. Solemn, black-eyed littletoddlers peered cautiously out from under their mother's shawls. Pretty young squaws with dark handkerchiefs over their heavy hair, jostled one another to get a better view, and at the sight of the whitegirl, the young buck gallants of the tribe straightened their shouldersand shifted their rifles to a jauntier angle. 

In low, throaty tones, punctuated with long-drawn "Ah-a-a's" andoccasional explosions of laughter, they talked among themselves, pressing closer each moment. From time to time a brown finger pointingat Jean's bare feet evoked a general shaking of dark heads and more"Ah-a-a's" of wonderment. 

Perhaps because of the apprehension in her heart, Jean held her headhigh and looked fearlessly into the brown, apparently menacing facesabout her. She glanced out over the dark heads hoping to see somemember of her own race; but the post, for the moment, seemed desertedby the whites. She reached for her nephew's small hand and held ittightly. 

Among the Indians the talking ceased suddenly. A sense of expectationemanated from the group. There was a shifting of positions as a tallThlinget, whom Jean had heard the White Chief call Swimming Wolf, stepped toward her, his red-bordered snowy blanket trailingmajestically from his shoulders. He stopped, bent his stately form, and looked long and earnestly at her bare feet. Before the girl knewwhat he was about he had wetted his finger in his mouth, rubbed italong her foot, and scrutinized it gravely. He glanced up, his teethflashing at her in a pleased smile. 

"Ugh! Ugh!" he marveled in his best English. "Little squaw with whitefeet!"

The smile ended in an involuntary grunt, for Loll with the fire ofwrath in his eye had leaped at the investigator and with all thestrength of his eight years had planted both fists in the stomach ofthe unprepared Indian. 

"_She's_ not a squaw!" shouted the outraged little fellow, making readyfor another attack. 

At the same moment Jean, her face burning and her hazel eyes two pointsof fire, landed a stinging blow on the surprised Swimming Wolf's ear. 

Straightening himself, he side-stepped, flinging his white blanket overhis shoulder with a sheepish grin. 

"Fierce little squaw with white feet!" he chuckled, admiringly. 

With loud laughs of amusement the others backed away. The circlebroken, the indignant Jean caught at the hand of her small protectorand fled away in the direction of the store. 

Angry with herself and thoroughly mortified by what she considered theinsulting familiarity of the Indian, she ran heedlessly. She roundedthe corner of one of the little courtyard cabins with reckless hasteand before she could check herself, had collided smartly with thedejected figure of a young man. The impact sent her staggeringbackward, but at the stammered words of apology which accompanied thesteadying hands he reached toward her, she looked at him with angryscorn. 

"It's a pity you white men are never around when you're needed!" shestormed at his surprised face. "But squaw-men, I suppose, are alwaysbusy--driving their wives to suicide!" She flung the last words at himand fled across the courtyard. At the moment she was out of patiencewith the entire population of Katleean. As she disappeared into thestore with Loll, she left Gregg Harlan gazing after her perplexedly, wondering at her last sentence. It was his first actual meeting witheither of the white women from the _Hoonah_. Because of their adventin Katleean he had remained sober for several days, but for some reasonhe did not understand he had not yet been given an opportunity to meetthese women from his own world. He turned from his contemplation ofthe empty doorway and walked back to his own cabin, his head bowed inthought. 

CHAPTER IV

BAIT

While Jean and Loll were pursuing their adventures about the post theWhite Chief was entertaining his other two guests in his low-ceilingedliving-room, dusky and pleasantly scented from logs of yellow cedarburning in the fireplace. He was posed in his favorite attitude, half-sitting, half-reclining among the cushions on a low couch of redfox skins. But while he told tales of the country to the interestedBoreland, his narrow eyes watched the play of the firelight on thesoftly-massed golden-brown hair of Ellen, Boreland's wife, who satknitting in the glow. 

Life, for the trader, had taken on a new zest this past week. Longyears of acting a part--the part of a great white chief, mysterious, all knowing, all powerful in the eyes of the simple natives of theNorth, had made him fully alive to the dramatic possibilities ofplaying host at Katleean, and he was not unaware of his ownsemi-barbaric attractiveness in these surroundings. 

It had been easy to induce Shane Boreland, for the sake of his wife andyoung sister-in-law, to spend a few weeks in the quarters back of thestore, where they were ministered to by the silent, dark-eyed womenwhose status they did not understand. 

The trader's heart was stirred with interest and expectancy. Here atlast was an auditor worthy of his best efforts--a white woman, not tooyoung, fair-faced and gentle, yet with the courage to follow her maninto the wilds of a new country. A woman, who, he had learned, couldunfailingly put a shot in a bull's eye at twenty paces and handle anoar in a small boat, yet a woman who could look sweetly domestic as sheknitted on a garment for her small son. To Paul Kilbuck, as to alldomineering men who scoff at matrimony, there was somethingirresistibly appealing in the "sweetly domestic" woman, somethingsuggestive of that oldest occupation of woman--the business ofministering to man's physical and temperamental needs, the duty ofmaking his body and his egotism comfortable. He watched her in covertapproval. 

How soft and white her throat appeared above the open neck of herblouse--soft and white with a tiny hollow at the base where a man mightleave kisses--or the print of his teeth. What little hands she had, white with nails of rosy pink. Little white hands! The words keptsinging through his consciousness. So long had brown hands done hisbidding up here in the North that he had nearly forgotten that awoman's skin could be so white! To have those little white hands justonce, softly feeling, caressing, losing themselves in the blackness ofhis beard----

The White Chief sat bolt upright to shake off the mad-sweet pang thathad thrilled him. The voice of Boreland brought him back from the landof forbidden thought. 

"You say this Lost Island is nothing but a myth, Kilbuck?" Theprospector had evidently been thinking of the White Chief's last storyas he sat rubbing the head of Kobuk, the huskie, who had placed hismuzzle on Boreland's knee. 

The trader lighted and tossed away a cigarette before he answered. 

"Just how much truth there is in the tale of the Lost Island I can'tsay, Boreland, " he said slowly, with a care to his English. He shiftedhis position until his eyes could no longer rest on the white woman inthe fireglow. "It has come down from the days of the Russianoccupation of the Aleutian Islands far to the west'ard. Our Thlingets, you know, got it from the natives of that section and the story runsthat an Aleut and his wife were banished from their village for somecrime, set adrift in a bidarka, a skin boat. Instead of perishing, astheir kinsmen intended, the pair turned up a year later with a tale ofa marvelous island many days' paddling to the eastward. On thisisland, they said, the sun shone warmer and the flowers grew larger andthe snowfall was lighter than anywhere else in their world; and therewas some queer story, I don't remember the details exactly, about anunderground passage and sands flecked with shining metal, the stuffthat trimmed up the holy pictures the Russian priests brought over fromRussia. "

"Gold!" interrupted Boreland. "It must have been gold!" His browneyes glowed and the White Chief noted that an eager alertness lightedhis lean tanned face. 

"The exiles decided to let a few of their friends in on the islandproposition and set out at the head of several bidarkas. According tothe story they knocked about up and down the North Pacific from Kodiakto Sitka for several months--but they never found their island. Neither did the natives of later years who went in search of it fromtime to time. "

"But the Russians, Kilbuck, didn't they ever try to find the place?"

The trader, pleased at the interest his story had aroused, lay backonce more against his cushions. "Possibly they did, " he went oneasily. "But it's likely they were satisfied with the wealth of furstheir Aleut hunters brought them. Those were great old days fortraffic in furs. The early Russians were, for the most part a lazy, rum-drinking lot, you know. To them riches meant sea-otter skins, andthey managed by various devilish methods--I can't say more about themin your presence, Mrs. Boreland--to enslave the entire Aleut nation todo their hunting. They gave them a little--and a mighty little--tradegoods in return. " By the inflections of his voice the agent of theAlaska Fur and Trading Company sought to convey to his listeners theimpression that the policy of those early companies was against _his_principles, though the books, so carefully kept by Add-'em-up Sam mighthave told a different story. 

"And it's possible the Russians thought the yarn to be merely anothernative fairy tale, " continued Kilbuck, waving a careless hand. "As Isaid there may be no other foundation for it. It has come down now forover two hundred years, and you may be sure when an Indian tells astory it loses nothing in the telling. "

The drowsy crackle of the flaming logs filled a short interval. 

Shane Boreland sat lost in meditation, his hand resting quietly on thedog's head, his eyes adream as with visions of the golden sands of theLost Island. 

His wife glanced up at him, uneasily, almost apprehensively it seemedto Kilbuck who was again watching her. Never in all his varied amorousexperiences had a woman's eyes held such a look for the White Chief--alook in which there was a protecting tenderness, comradeship andsomething more. 

He settled farther back in his cushions, his eyes narrowing. Love hadyet some new delight to offer him. . . . His virile years wereslipping by--he was surprised and disturbed how often this thought hadbeen with him of late. Should he grasp the opportunity offered? Theremight be a way--up here in Katleean where his word was law. . . . Perhaps----

Kilbuck brought himself up with a start. Ellen Boreland had droppedher knitting and had crossed to her husband's chair. Her hand restedon his broad shoulder and there was a wistful little twist to her smileas she shook him gently to rouse him. 

"He's forever dreaming of the gold that lies beyond the skyline--thisman of mine--and always going to find it, " she said fondly. "Soplease, Mr. Kilbuck, don't get him interested in any mythical island. We've been gone from the States six months now, and I want him to goback for the winter. " There was a half-playful, half-earnest note ofpleading in her voice, but the White Chief noticed that her eyes didnot fully meet his. 

During all her thirty years, doubtless, Ellen Boreland had looked afriendly world in the eye. She was that sort. He saw that she wastroubled now at not being able to do this in the case of the trader ofKatleean. Probably he himself was not attractive to her--perhaps hewas even fascinatingly repellant with that electric and disturbing andpromising quality that drew almost irresistibly. There were women who, under that impulsion, had been moved to come close and gaze into hispale, black-lashed eyes. It was an impulse akin to that which urgespeople to fling themselves from great heights; to peer into abandoned, stagnant wells. . . . He had an idea that she knew he saw this, for hehad watched her face flush under his glance as though at the thought ofhaving dishonored herself by sharing with him some guilty secret. Hesaw that she was uncomfortable in accepting his hospitality. Twiceduring their stay she had entreated her husband to leave Katleean, orat least go back aboard the schooner for the remainder of their visit. But Shane Boreland, clean-hearted adventurer, to whom the vagaries of awoman's mind were a closed book, had only laughed at her request, retorting that life aboard the _Hoonah_ had made her into a littlesea-dog and a few weeks ashore with such a host as the White Chiefwould do her a world of good. 

The host now lighted one of his short-lived cigarettes. In his mindwas forming a plan suggested by Ellen Foreland's words. He mightdevelop it later, and again he might not, but it would not be amiss toprepare the way. 

He tossed his cigarette into the fireplace, slipping without effortinto the part he had assigned himself. 

"Dreams are the things that make life worth living, Mrs. Boreland. "His low, vibrant tones sounded pleasantly in the dusky room. "Borelandhere has his dreams of a mine of gold, but I--" he hesitated, his voicetaking on a whimsical softness, "but I, in my Northern solitude, havemy dreams of a heart of gold. " His look was designed to leave no doubtin Ellen Boreland's mind that it was a feminine heart of gold that hesought. 

There was a pause during which the charred logs in the fireplacedropped down sending up a brighter flame. 

"But you mustn't be too sure that the Lost Island is a myth. " He spokebriskly now as it putting aside deliberately his own longings. "Inthis part of the country some say that the Lost Island is that of KonKlayu. "

As Boreland looked up questioningly the White Chief went on:

"Of course, it does in some ways answer the description. It is ninetymiles off the coast here. Cape Katleean is the nearest land. TheJapan current gives it a milder climate and we know that the beach sandcarries gold--a little gold. "

"Anyone living there?" interrupted Boreland eagerly. 

"Not a soul. The Alaska Fur and Trading Company did send a party outthere some years ago, to start a fox-farm. That's how I got myinformation. They were a hootch-drinking, lazy lot and the farm wasn'ta success. But Add-'em-up Sam, a bookkeeper I used to have, spent awinter there. He told me many things about the place. " The WhiteChief paused a moment. A new idea had just come to him. "Silvertip, who used to be on the whaler _Sophie Sutherland_, has stopped there forwater, too. "

Boreland, rising from his chair thrust both hands into his pockets andbegan to pace up and down the room. 

"By thunder, Kilbuck, I'm interested in that island, whether it's theLost Island or not! Kon Klayu . . . Kon Klayu . . . " He repeated thename thoughtfully. "Seems to me that's the Thlinget for ruby sand, which in itself suggests possibilities. Ruby sand is a gold carrier!"There was a note of enthusiasm in Boreland's voice, but as he noticedthe look on his wife's face he crossed to her side and put an arm overher slender shoulders. "But we'll talk that over some other time, Chief. I don't want to bore Ellen with too much mining----"

A flinging open of the door that led to the store cut short his speechas an indignant little boy burst in on them. 

"Mother! Mother!" he shouted. "That big old Indian, Swimming Wolf, called my Auntie Jean a squaw!"

"And the wretch put his hand on my foot, Ellen!" Jean following closeon the heels of her nephew, stopped before her sister, her slim handsclenched at her sides, each outraged shake of her head loosening theribbon that bound her hair. "I hate this place, Shane!" she cried, turning swiftly to her brother-in-law. "I wish we were all back aboardthe _Hoonah_!" Her voice trembled with unshed tears of mortification, and both her sister and Shane started toward her with exclamations ofsympathy and alarm. 

The White Chief regarded the attractively disheveled little figure withappreciation, but he realized that something had happened whichendangered the stay of his visitors. He rose to place a chair for her. When he spoke his voice, the voice that had charmed many women, soothedwhile it promised. 

"There now, Miss Wiley, things may not be so bad as you think. Sitdown and tell me all about it and I'll see what can be done. "

Disregarding the proffered chair, the girl launched forth with thestory of her encounter with Swimming Wolf. Her slim hands gestured. Above her flushed cheeks her eyes flashed and the unruly cloud of hair, freed at last from its ribbon, fell about her shoulders. 

As she told of the slap on Swimming Wolf's ear, the pale eyes of theWhite Chief glowed. Truly, as Kayak Bill had said, one could nevertell about a white woman. Here was a situation he would have to handlewith care. Here was a time when his knowledge of Indian nature, gainedduring years of association with them, stood him in good stead. 

"Miss Jean, " he said. "Just a moment. I think I can explain SwimmingWolf's extraordinary action. " The White Chief measured her with an airof understanding that, he could see, made an impression on the girl inspite of herself. "An Indian, you know, never really grows up. Eventhough he has the body of a man, he still keeps the heart of a child. Now when you were little, Miss Jean, don't you remember the time yousaw your first negro--a black, strange creature? Didn't you wonder, while you looked at his face and his hands if he could possibly beblack all over? Be honest now, didn't you?"

Loll who had settled himself on the floor with an arm about Kobuk'sneck, sprang up and stood beside his aunt. 

"Yes, _I_ did, Chief, " he interrupted, with eager, nodding head, "and Iasked him about it, too. I did!"

Jean's face was clearing. She inclined her head in faint affirmation. 

"Just so, " the trader went on. "When Swimming Wolf saw his first whitewoman no doubt in his simple heart he wondered, too, and so did theother natives who gathered about you, --children, all of them. SwimmingWolf, the clumsy siwash, had no English words to ask you about it, sohe took the simplest way to find out whether or not the white came off!"

A shadowy smile began to twitch at the corners of Jean's mouth. Seeingit, the White Chief was encouraged to go on:

"The inquisitive rascal is really one of our bravest hunters, and a manof tall totems and many blankets. He would feel astonished and_kusk-i-a-tu_--very sad--if he knew he had offended you. As a matterof fact, "--the trader laughed--"the Wolf admires you and in hisprimitive way has paid you a great compliment. I wasn't going tomention it, but since this has come up perhaps it will help explain. "

Jean looked up inquiringly. 

"Up here in the North, Miss Jean, it is the custom of the young bucksto buy any little girl who takes his fancy. He pays for her while heis strong and a good hunter, you see. When the girl grows up he takesher for his wife. "

There was a gasp of astonishment from Ellen and her sister, but Kilbuckwent on:

"One hundred dollars is a mighty good price to pay for a wife, but Swimming Wolf, my little lady, came to me yesterday withfour black fox skins, which are worth perhaps three thousanddollars. He wanted to know if I would arrange with the Big WhiteMan--your brother-in-law--to take them in payment for the _shawutclate_, the White-Girl-Who-Makes-Singing-Birds-in-the-Little-Brown-Box. "

Jean lifted her chin with a laugh in which amusement and embarrassmentwere equally mingled. "How quaintly ridiculous, Ellen, to describe myviolin playing in such a way! But mercy, " she added, after they hadall laughed over the incident, "I must run away upstairs and put onsome footwear. If I had kept on my shoes and stockings, as I shouldhave done, Swimming Wolf might not have called me 'little squaw withwhite feet'!"

Kilbuck, satisfied with himself, had settled back once more against hiscushions and as she turned to say a parting word to him, was regardingher with half-closed eyes. The firelight played on her slim, whiteankles and soft little feet. He surveyed her with a look that slowly, appraisingly, stripped her body of its garments and swept her from herbare feet to her face and back again. The girl caught it. Conscious, for the first time of him--his savage reality as other than amiddle-aged man--of her own womanhood, she flushed violently. Shrinking back she reached for Loll's hand, and stammering anincoherent excuse, ran from the room. 

Ellen, unconscious of what had happened, measured off a row of stitchesin the knitting she had again taken up. "Jean certainly seems to betumbling in and out of adventures, " she remarked. "Sometimes, Shane, Iwonder if we did right in bringing her with us. "

"Nonsense, Ellen. A year up here will make a different girl ofher--help her break away from the cut and dried sameness of schoollife. Darned if it doesn't make me tired to see all the young womenturned out of the same mould. "

As Boreland spoke the door leading into the store opened slowly, andinto the room sauntered Kayak Bill. He seated himself in silence, tilting his sombrero to the back of his head--the only concession toconvention he ever made, since Kayak had never been known to removethat article of apparel until he sought his bunk at night. 

"I just been mouchin' round down in the Village, Chief, " he drawled, "seein' if there was anything a-doin' in the way o' local sin, and theytells me that the funeral canoes is a-comin' in tonight. "

CHAPTER V

THE FUNERAL CANOES

Ellen glanced up at the old hootch-maker sitting serenely on the otherside of the fireplace. Some time during the day he had put on highleather boots but having neglected to lace them, the bellows-tonguedtops stood away from his sturdy legs and the raw-hide laces squirmedabout his feet like live things. 

"The funeral canoes?" she echoed, wonderingly. 

Kayak Bill turned to her with a sort of slow eagerness, as if he hadbeen awaiting an excuse to look at her. 

"Yas, Lady. They're a-bringin' in the ashes o' their dead kin from upin the Valley of the Kag-wan-tan. "

Ellen's mind reverted to the many strange things she had heard duringher short stay in Katleean, concerning the coming Potlatch of theIndians. This land and its people were new and mysterious to her. These primitive Thlingets, descendants of the fiercest and mostintelligent of all the northern tribes were, withal, a fearful peopleliving in a world of powerful and malignant spirits who frowned fromthe rocks, glittered from the cold, white mountains and glaciers, whispered in the trees and cackled derisively from the campfires; aworld of hostile eyes spying upon them in the hope that some of theirweird and mystic tabus might be broken, and of sly ears listening toavenge some careless remark. A childlike people they were, who spokekindly to the winds and offered bits of fish for its favor; who beggedthe capricious sea to give them food, and who spent most of their livesworking for the comfort of the dead--the Restless Ones--who sweep thewinter skies when the day is done, beckoning, whispering. The NorthernLights the white man calls them, as they leap and play above the frozenpeaks, but the Thlinget knows them to be the spirits of the dead, homeless in space but hovering confidently overhead until theirrelatives on earth can give a Potlatch for their repose. 

Running like a black thread through the woof of the spirit tales wasthe mention of witch-craft--witchcraft with which Kilbuck was nowpreparing to deal; not because he hoped to benefit the natives and freethem from the curse of superstition, but because owing to a belief inthe black art, the Indians of Katleean were not bringing in the amountof furs expected, and this meant a loss of money to the Alaska Fur andTrading Company. 

Ellen recalled the superior air of amusement with which the White Chiefhad told of the dominating belief in demons. 

"When one of the beggars wants to cast a spell, " he had said, his lipcurling in a sardonic smile, "he takes a bit of cloth from some garmenthis enemy has worn and at the hour of midnight slinks into a graveyardand digs down until he finds a body. If he wants to cripple hisenemy's hand, he puts the cloth in the fingers of the corpse. If hewishes his enemy to lose his mind he puts it over the skull, and if hewants him dead, he places the cloth over the heart in the coffin. Oh, they are a sweet outfit, I tell you!" The Chief had laughed as ifthese things were merely amusing. Then he had gone on to explain thatacross the Bay of Katleean in the shadow of the great blue glacierwhich was discernible on sunny days, there had been a lonely Thlingetgraveyard. Because of its isolation this burial place had been soriddled with re-opened graves and so much killing, torturing andfighting had ensued among the Indians in their efforts to detect andpunish so-called witches that he, their White Chief, had been obligedto interfere. He had put an end to the reign of sorcery in thatparticular graveyard rather cleverly, Ellen was forced to admit, byhaving all the bodies exhumed and cremated on the spot. 

"They'll bring the ashes over here where I can keep an eye on them andprevent further 'witching, '" the trader had finished. "And after thePotlatch we'll have a little peace in the country, I hope. I neverinterfere with the Potlatches. They make good business for theCompany, for the brown heathens believe the spirits are really feastingand rejoicing with them. " Kilbuck laughed as at some recollection. "The Company sends in hundreds of blankets every year for dead Indians. Whenever a Potlatch blanket is given away the name of a dead man iscalled and he receives it in the spirit world. Whenever a little foodis put on the Potlatch fire, a dead man's name is mentioned and he getsa square meal up there in Ghost's Home. Altogether the Alaska Fur andTrading Company does a lively business with the dead!"

As Ellen thought on these things there crept into her mother-heart afeeling of pity for these simple, trusting people seeking theprotection and guidance of this white man only to have their beliefsand superstitions laughed at and exploited for the benefit of hiscompany. She was beginning to feel, dimly, what every reader of thehistory of exploration knows, that drunkenness, fraud and trickery areamong the first teachings the white man's civilization brings to thetribes of a new country. 

A tinge of sadness and foreboding darkened her thoughts. 

Kayak Bill, who had been drawing contentedly on his corn-cob pipe, rosesuddenly through a low-hung cloud of tobacco smoke, and taking up anold almanac from the table, began fanning the air clumsily. His slowdrawl with a suspicion of haste in it, broke in on her meditations:

"By hell, Lady, " he apologized earnestly, "excuse me for creatin' ofsuch a blamed smudge!"

Ellen looked up from her knitting. 

"Oh, I don't mind a little smoke, Kayak Bill. " She smiled at theconcern in the old man's voice. "You see Shane smokes a good deal, too. " She nodded toward the couch where her husband puffed on his pipeas he plied Kilbuck with questions about the Island of Kon Klayu. "Iwas just thinking about the funeral canoes and the Potlatch. "

"The beginnin's of the Potlatch will be pulled off tomorrow, Lady, buttonight--" Kayak stopped fanning and leaned closer to her. Then witha glance in the direction of the White Chief he lowered his voice. "Tonight, when the funeral canoes comes in, I'd aim to gather in theyoung sprout, Loll, and that little gal sister o' yourn. . . . We'repurty civilized here in Katleean, but--wall, there ain't no tellin'what an Injine will do after he's taken on a couple o' snorts o' whitemule, --or a squaw-man, either, for that matter. O' course, I make thestuff myself, and a mighty hard time I have, too, to keep shut o' thesepesky dudes o' revenue officers that's all the time a-devilin' o' me. But I don't recommend it none a-tall. "

Kayak Bill, with his boot-laces snaking along behind him, shuffled overto his chair once more and settled himself for conversation, whichEllen had learned meant a monologue. The edge of his sombrero backedhis busy head and kindly face like a soiled grey halo. His low voice, never rising, never falling, droned on:

"Yas, I don't drink none myself, bein' weaned, as you might say, whenI'm but a yearlin'. But I make it for those as likes it, and I makesit good, for it's everybody to his own cemetery, I say. . . . No, Idon't join no Y. W. C. T. U. Or nothin, ' but one time, when I'm a realyoung feller, I'm off on the range for a spell down in Texas, and Iain't no nature for shavin' or none o' them doo-dads and besides I'ddon't have no razor or no lookin' glass. Wall, six months or so goesmillin' by and finally I comes down into San Antonio one Sataday night. And right away, havin' at that time what you might call an eddycatedtaste for whisky, I makes a charge for the nearest bar and takes on adozen or so good snifters, likewise some beverages they calls mintjulips. And durn me, Lady, if in no time everything in that placeain't a-whizzin' past me like the mill-tails o' hell!

"But I gets my bearin's after while and lays my course for a door toget some fresh air. Just as I reaches this here door, Lady, a big, swaggerin' rough-lookin' hombre with a red beard starts to come in. Wall, I looks him over careful. He likewise gives me a nasty look. Then polite-like, I steps aside waitin' for him to come through. Buthe don't come none, havin' stepped aside too. . . . Wall, by this timeI'm feelin' purty groggy and I makes a bolt for the door again, aimin'to get through quick; but blamed if that durned son-of-a-gun don't doidentical! Then back I sashays once more and my dander sort o' riz upin me. 'By the roarin' Jasus, ' I yells, 'you lay offen that monkeybusiness, you consarned whiskery cuss, or I'll fill you so full o'holes yore own mammy won't know you from a hunk o' cheese. Just onemore crack like that out o' you, ' I says, 'and down comes yoremeat-house, ' I says. . . . Wall, I got started through the door again, and by hell, Lady, in spite o' my warnin' o' him, he comes at me again. So, . . . " Kayak Bill paused the fraction of a second; then his voicewent on with its accustomed languor: "So I just whipped out my littleold . 45 and shot him. "

Ellen gasped, her big blue eyes opening in horror as she looked intothe serene face of the self-confessed murderer. Kayak Bill, apparentlyunconscious of her regard, droned on:

"Yas, I charged full tilt into him shootin' as I went, but instead o'him a-fallin dead, I finds myself in a shower o' glass, and all theboys is a-dancin' round me and likin' to die o' laughin' at me. . . . You see, Lady, that door happens to be one o' them long mirro's saloonshas, and not havin' no acquaintance with myself in a beard a-tall, Ipots my image! Ha! Ha! Ha!" Kayak Bill's laugh gurgled out slowlylike mellow liquor from a wide-mouthed bottle. "Wall, after I got donea-payin' for the mirro' and a-settin' 'em up for the boys, and a-payin'for a saw bones to fix me up--me bein' conside-ble carved by glass, Idon't have no more money than a jack-rabbit. So I says to myself:'Bill, you ol' jackass, you got to reform, that's all there are to it. We can't have the whole durned world laughin' at you when yore in yoreliquor!', I says. . . . And I did reform, Lady! So help me Hannah, Idid!" Kayak Bill, with an air of conscious virtue, was filling hispipe again. 

While Ellen gathered up her knitting, the corners of her mouth weretwitching with amusement. 

"Kayak Bill, " she said as she shook her finger at him playfully, "yousurely have an effective way of making a confession. I don't reallyknow whether to praise you for your sobriety or scold you forhorrifying me a moment ago. "

Ellen heard the old man's chuckle as she arose. Her face went sober, however, the moment her eyes sought the couch where her husband satstill engrossed with the White Chief. Though she lingered Shane didnot turn her way, and she finally moved toward the door through whichher sister had gone an hour earlier. 

"Thank you for telling me about tonight, Kayak, " she said as she passedhim. "I'm going up now to warn Jean and Loll, but--" she hesitated, "Iwish more of the men in Katleean had been 'weaned' as you were. "

She saw approval in the slow softening of his hazel eyes, and as thedoor closed behind her she caught a remark the old hootch-makeraddressed to the dog at his feet. 

"By hell, Kobuk, " he pronounced earnestly, "that little lady's husbandhas sure fell into a bed of four leaf clovers!"

She stored this quaint tribute away in her mind and told it to Jeanthat evening after she had repeated for the second time Kayak's warningregarding the arrival of the funeral canoes. But Jean, determined notto miss any detail of the strange Thlinget festival, watched till anopportunity presented itself, and then, disregarding Ellen's advice, slipped away to the beach to a pile of silvery drift-logs that lay atthe edge of the rice-grass, where she knew she could not be seen exceptfrom the sea. The girl settled herself comfortably among the logs justas the long day was waning. 

She noted that here, as everywhere else in this northern land ofexquisite, fleeting summers, the sunset colors came on gradually, increasing in richness of tone and fading through several hours. Themist of the afternoon had scattered before a faint sea-wind, andsettled wraithlike in the hollows of the hills across the bay. Violetnow in the gloaming it melted into the lilac shadows at the base of therange that needled the sunset sky. 

There was something like promise in the wild beauty of theevening-time; something in the clean night-scent of the sea and thegrass and the trampled beach-weed that awakened in Jean a sense ofexpectancy. She breathed deeply, conscious of a keen delight in doingso. As she waited, the rose and amber tints died on the white peaks atthe head of the valley, . . . The flaming orange behind them turnedfrom clear gold to vermilion, . . . From rose madder to an unearthlyred that glowed behind a veil of amethyst while the twilight deepened.. . . 

Suddenly she caught her breath. Out of the powdery, purple gloomacross the bay floated a long line--the funeral canoes. In the blurreddistance they took shape one by one, the paddles dipping in solemnrhythm. . . . Nearer they came, . . . And nearer. Then over thedarkening water drifted the plaintive rise and fall of the funerallament, faint and eerie as voices from the spirit land. 

Jean, thinking to linger but a moment before returning to the store, was spellbound by the mystery and loneliness of the scene. All atonce, as she watched, a line of silent, blanketed figures fromsomewhere behind, began to slip down past her hiding place. Loomingweird and tall in the dusk they halted at the water's edge. Softly, almost imperceptibly these waiting ones took up the mournful plaint, sending it floating out thin and high in answer to the approachingbearers of the dead. 

While she listened awe and wonder began to give way to something thattantalized her with a fleeting familiarity--a near understanding. Long-lost memories of primeval things that eluded her when she stroveto vision them mocked her with an indefinable yearning to pierce theages of oblivion that separated her from other nights, other scenes, other chants like these. . . . She longed for her violin. If shecould but feel the loved instrument beneath her chin, her fingersdrawing from its vibrant lower strings the mystery-music to supplementthe weird dirge, these primitive things hidden in the dust of the pastmight be revealed to her! Suddenly she became aware that one of thetall figures had stopped in the trail beside her pile of driftwood. Ina tone singularly pleasing he was humming the air of the funerallament, fitfully, experimentally at first, then as the hauntingmonotony of the strain became familiar, with a certain easy confidence. Jean forgot to be afraid. Almost unconsciously she found herselfhumming in unison with the motionless figure. Even when the man facedher and she saw in the dim light, not an Indian, but the young whiteman, Gregg Harlan, she did not cease. She was conscious of a feelingof companionship. Night had gilded the wilderness with a primordialbeauty and made her kin to all earth's creatures. She moved slowlyfrom her pile of driftwood and stood beside him for a moment in thetrail watching the incoming canoes. It was a moment of simplicity andunconsciousness of self such as might have been in the dawn ofcivilization when conventions were unknown. She hummed, cradling inher heart impressions of the night so that later she might awaken themthrough the music of her violin. The man in the trail continued hiswordless song. . . . 

The crunching of leather soles on the gravel behind them startled Jean. She and her companion turned simultaneously to find themselves face toface with the trader of Katleean. 

"Well, well!" The sarcastic voice of the White Chief shattered thesweet, wild moment like an invidious thing. "You two seem to begetting uncommonly friendly!" His red lip lifted on one side into acynical smile that suddenly infuriated Jean, implying, as it did, thathe had caught the two young people in a compromising situation. Shetook a hasty step toward him, looking with fearless eyes into his face. 

"How dare you slip up behind us this way!" she flashed, stamping herfoot and flinging out her hands in a short, angry gesture. A momentlonger she looked at him as if he were an object of scorn, then turningto the young man, said quietly: "Good night, Mr. Harlan. "

The next instant she was walking up the dusky trail to the post. 

Kilbuck watched her go. Accustomed to commanding all situations atKatleean, he was for the moment nonplused by the quickness andvehemence of the girl's retort, rather than by what she had said. Hehad expected to place the two at a disadvantage. Finding the tablesturned, a momentary and unreasoning desire to cover his owndiscomfiture by hurting some one took possession of him. 

"I say, Gregg, I'm rather surprised to find you at this time of night, alone with Miss Wiley. I don't think her sister would approve, exactly. Since your affair with Naleenah, you know--" he finished thesentence with a depreciatory shrug. 

"_My_ affair with Naleenah! What do you mean?" The young man took aquick step toward him. 

"Oh, now, don't get excited, Gregg. You were drunk, of course, but youmust remember she took you home and spent the last night of her lifewith you. The whole post saw you two go off together the night the_Hoonah_ came in. Boreland has heard the talk, of course. Too bad, myboy, " the Chief put his hand on the astonished young fellow's shoulder, "too bad, I say, that after all your fastidious virtue you have thereputation of being a squaw-man. " Kilbuck laughed his short, sardoniclaugh. 

"_She_ thinks I'm a squaw-man?" Gregg indicated the disappearingfigure of Jean. His voice was sharp with hurt amazement, indignation, and the grasp of his hand on the Chief's arm made that gentleman wince. 

"All of them do, my boy. _All_ of them. But----"

"Now I begin to understand, " Harlan broke in bitterly. With a mutteredimprecation he flung himself into the trail and walked toward thecourtyard where a light shone palely from Kayak Bill's window. TheWhite Chief looked after him until he vanished. Gregg had been soberfor a week now, but if Kilbuck was any judge of indications, thebookkeeper's sobriety was at an end. As the trader turned toward thebeach and walked to the canoes now landing in the dusk, he smiled tothink how neatly he had nipped in the bud any possible romance betweenGregg and Jean. 

Two hours later in the loft above Kilbuck's living quarters Jean waskneeling at a tiny window looking up at the ridge where dark sprucetrees peaked a line against the night sky. It was a strange guestchamber pungent with a faint, unforgetable odor from fox pelts danglingfrom the rafters, bear hides tacked to the slanting roof, and rows ofsmoked salmon and dried cod hanging from lines along the sides. Lolllay fast asleep on his small floor-pallet, his face half-buried in hispillow, his mouth reverted to the pout of babyhood. The door leadingto Ellen's room--the only real room in the loft, was partly open. Jeanrose and closed it, took up her violin from her own floor bed, and wentback to the window. 

Softly fingering the strings she picked out the notes of the Indianlament that kept repeating itself in her mind. She was possessed by adesire to express in music the mystery of the wilderness afterglow, thewild, illusive feeling that had touched her. She longed to use her bowfreely on the strings of her violin until, at one with the instrument, she could lose herself in the ecstasy of creation. . . . She reachedfor the bow that lay on the floor beside her. Perhaps, if she playedvery softly she might disturb no one----

Up from the courtyard, as if a door had been suddenly opened, camestartling sounds--short yells, Indian war-whoops and the maudlinsinging of white men. The mournful, prolonged howl of a dog drifted infrom somewhere. Down in the direction of the Indian village half adozen shots were fired in rapid succession. Jean's heart beat oddly. Katleean was beginning to celebrate the Potlatch in the singular way ofthe male, who, since time immemorial has made a holiday an occasion fora carousal. The girl sighed, and placed her violin gently on thefloor. With her chin in her hands she took her former position at thewindow and listened. 

Somewhere near the store a trio began. The blended harmony of men'svoices as they sang in the dusk had in it a peculiar stir. Jean foundherself, head up and shoulders swaying, responding to the lilt andswing of the air:

 "Hear the rattle of our windlass As the anchor comes away; For we're bound for Old Point Barrow And we make our start today. "

Rollicking, devil-may-care, the whaling song went on through longverses. Many of the words she could not distinguish, but throughoutthe singing she was aware of a feeling that these singers were men whohad cast aside the restraint of conventions, even in a way, responsibility for conduct, and were exulting in their freedom. 

Thinking the song finished she turned away at last, but the movementwas arrested by the sound of a lone baritone taking up the chorusagain. She leaned over the sill to catch the words, for in the voiceshe recognized her companion of the drift logs. 

 "Up into the Polar Seas Where the greasy whalers be, There's a strip of open water Leading north to eighty-three, Where the frisky seal and walrus On the ice floes bask and roll. And the sun comes up at midnight From an ice-pack round the Pole. "

Apprehension in the girl's heart vanished. She drew a deep breath ofthe night air and turned reluctantly from the window. "There's a stripof open water leading north to eighty-three--" she hummed. The wordsstirred in her dim, venturesome imaginings. She felt suddenly on thethreshold of adventure beyond which might lie the fierce, wild thingsof romance that only men have known. It alarmed, even while itexhilarated her. She felt afraid, yet daring. She was beginning tofeel the lure of Alaska--the vast, the untamed, the inscrutable, thepromising. 

As she slipped between her blankets she thought of the young white man. Squaw-man he might be, and a drunkard, but he had the heart of anadventurer . . . He was young . . . And he could sing . . . 

CHAPTER VI

THE WHITE CHIEF MAKES MEDICINE

Sunless and softly grey morning came to Katleean. The water, smooth assatin, stretched away to the mist-shrouded hills. Owing to some odd, mirage-like condition of the atmosphere trees bordering the lagoonacross the bay stood high and clear above a bank of fog. The liquidmusic of the surf was hushed as if to give place to a new sound thatpulsed unceasingly on the quiet air: the strange and thrilling boom ofThlinget drums. Up from the great Potlatch-house in the Villagefloated the savage resonance adding a barbaric note of announcement tothe placid beauty of the scene. Above the roofs of the native housesand straight between the totems of the Thunder-bird and the Bear, rosethe black smoke of the Potlatch fire. 

Though it was early, the double doors of the trading-post stood openfor the White Chief had been abroad several hours. After a night ofrevelry in Katleean there were always knife-wounds to dress, batteredheads to bind up, bullets to extract, and even broken bones to set. The nearest doctor was five hundred miles away and Kilbuck, often theonly sober man at the post, with the exception of Kayak Bill, performedthese services. 

Some said that he had learned all he knew of medical science from therow of gold-lettered volumes tucked away in one corner of his duskyliving-room; others claimed that a great eastern medical college hadknown him as a student in the far-off days before Alaska took him forher own. Whatever was the source of his knowledge he did his work witha degree of rough skill, and humanely, using as an antidote for thepain he inflicted during these operations, stupendous quantities of thevery liquor which had brought about his patients' troubles. 

Among the Kagwantans of the Thlinget people he had been given the rankof Shaman, or medicine man. To further his own ends and to keep hishold on the natives, he had always donned the robes that went with thisconferred honor and had taken an active part in the Potlatchceremonies. As the years went by, with but four steamers atwelve-month to disturb his voluntary exile and but a waning interestin anything south of Dixon's Entrance, he had grown to have a realenjoyment in these affairs. They served to banish any lingeringinhibitions imposed by civilization. 

As he walked across the courtyard toward the little cabin of Silvertipand his squaw, Senott, there were thoughtful lines in the White Chief'sbrow. Today he would have an opportunity to impress the white womenwith his importance among the wild people of the North. Today EllenBoreland should see him as the great chief and Shaman, banisher ofThlinget sorcery. But--how far might he go in this character withoutrunning the risk of becoming ridiculous? Never before had such anaudience taxed his powers of discrimination. True, by subtle speeches, he had prepared his visitors for anything that might happen, and heknew they would excuse much that was bizarre on his own part because ofhis explanation that such ways were necessary in handling a primitivepeople. But he also knew that there is but a thin dividing linebetween savage pomp and ludicrous ostentation. 

As he neared Silvertip's door he raised his head decisively andmounting the steps entered without knocking. 

His glance swept the small room with its snowy sand-scoured floor, itsrectangular box-stove of sheet-iron, and two corner bunks, one abovethe other. 

"Well, Silvertip, you and Harlan are the last ones on my list. I can'tfind _him_ any place, but I see you've come to anchor all right. What's the matter with you?" He addressed the wan-looking Silvertip inthe lower bunk. 

A long-drawn sigh quivered up from the blankets, and with a shakinghand the Swede indicated his head. 

"My ol' ooman (groan) . . . Lick hal outen me . . . (groan)!"

Kilbuck bent down and parted the fair, blood-matted hair on the side ofhis patient's head. 

"Oh, you're not much hurt, man. You and Senott ought to learn to takea little drink together without beating each other up this way. " Helaughed as he made ready to cleanse the cut. "May I inquire where thelady is this morning?"

Between groans the injured husband profanely unburdened himself:

"She go down de tarn Injune house vit dat tarn Injune hunter, Hoots-noo!"

"Trouble with you, Silver, you're too good to women. Now, instead ofusing the iron hand on them you show the yellow streak----"

"Me--jallow streak?" The indignant Swede raised his battered head toglare into the eyes of his satiric physician. "Vy, tammit, Chief, venay ban cook on _Soofie Suderlant_ ay----"

"That reminds me, Silvertip, " interrupted the White Chief. "Youremember telling me about stopping for water on the Island of Kon Klayuwhen you were whaling? Yes? . . . Well, while you are lying heresobering up, I want you to think about that island, Silver. I want youto remember every little thing about it that you can, and after thePotlatch I'll be in to talk to you--perhaps. I'll go and hunt upHarlan now. Damned fool! He raised hell last night--something startedhim off. No doubt he's down around the Point swimming it off now. Queer how that fellow loves water--on the outside of his skin. "

The trader left the cabin and started across the courtyard. It hadgradually filled up with multi-colored, grotesque figures that mighthave stepped from the pages of some weird, fantastic fairy-tale. Thenever-ceasing beat of the Potlatch drums made a throbbing, lowaccompaniment to their guttural tones and laughter. They stalked aboutwrapped in heavy broadcloth blankets adorned with designs and bordersmade of white pearl buttons--thousands of buttons--a style which hadcome in when the white traders came to Alaska. Many wore the nativeChilcat blanket of ceremony made of the hair of the mountain goat. These were marvels of savage embroidery done in conventionalizeddesigns that might have startled a Cubist painter had they not beenwoven with the softest-toned native dyes--yellow, pale-blue and greenand rust. Huge, fierce detached eyes, the Thlinget symbol ofintelligence glared from some. Mouths with queer, squared lips andlarge teeth grinned from others. A school of killer-whales with dorsalfins aloft, disported themselves in rectangles of black on the back ofanother. From the bottom a two-foot fog-colored fringe dangled aboutthe wearer's legs. 

Above the fantastic robes black eyes looked out from painted facesrendered fearsome by red and blue and green designs representingmythical gods of the clouds, waves, and beasts, fish and birds. Headswere crowned with the skulls of grizzly bears and small whales. A fewfigures were disguised by pelts of animals, but instead of paws, hugewooden hands with fingers more than a foot long, dangled from theforearms. 

Swimming Wolf, brave in a dance-blanket which bore the wolf emblem ofthe Kagwantans, held his head proudly under the sacred hat of Kahanuk, the Wolf, and on his face in red and blue was the Kia-sa-i-da, the redmouth of the wolf when the lips are retracted. 

As the White Chief made his way through the throng he noted withsatisfaction that Ellen Boreland and her sister were standingspellbound in the doorway of the trading-post watching the primitivemasquerade. Even as he looked a creature broke suddenly from the crowdand rushed toward them, half-running, half-flopping like a woundedbird. To one side of its face half a moustache was attached. Theother cheek was adorned with red and blue paint. The hair was twistedinto a high peak and further decorated with the wings of a seagull. Aman's hair-seal waistcoat trimmed with red flannel hung from theshoulders and from this streamed yards of brilliant colored calicostrips an inch wide. 

As the figure reached the platform, the two white women shrank back inthe doorway. The half-portion of the moustache was raised in adelighted grin. 

"Heavens, Ellen!" gasped Jean, clutching her sister's arm. "It's thatjolly little Senott, Silvertip's squaw. The one that brought us thestrawberries the other day!"

Senott, proud in her Potlatch finery, came close and gazed withfriendly eyes at the white visitors. 

"Ha! Ha!" she laughed. "You not know Senott? Senott all same_kate-le-te_--all same seagull!" She threw out her arms raising themup and down and lifting high her feet to represent a seagull alightingat the edge of breaking surf. 

"Bime-by you white 'oomans come along Senott--" she pointed in thedirection of Kilbuck's living-room windows under which he had caused agreat grave to be dug. "You come. Senott show you t'ings. "

With a wide smile and a wave of her hand the gay Senott, apparentlyforgetful of the white spouse at home nursing the broken headshe had given him, flapped away to join her Indian lover, Hoots-noo, Heart-of-a-Grizzly, the handsome young husband ofOld-Woman-Who-Would-Not-Die. 

At noon every soul in Katleean had assembled in front of thetrading-post. The boom of drums was louder. There was a feeling ofexpectancy in the air. The few whites, with the exception of Kilbuck, sat on the platform in front of the store. The natives formed ashifting, motley crowd in the courtyard. Kayak Bill, sitting next toEllen, smoked his pipe as he contemplated the scene. 

"Wall, Lady, " he drawled, leaning toward her, "I seen a heap o' thissort o' jaberwocky doin's in my time up here, and it used to make mefeel like as if them Injines had a tank full o' doodle-bugs under theirhair--but I don't know-- Take us white folks down in the States now, when we're a-celebratin' o' Decoration day without our speeches and ourpeerades and our offerin's o' posies and such. It's the same principleexact----"

The old man ceased speaking abruptly. Out of the door behind them anddown the platform steps walked the White Chief of Katleean and thelittle Thlinget woman, Decitan. About her shoulders was draped afringed black and yellow blanket of wondrous design. On her dark, thick hair she wore the crest of the Eagle clan--a privilege accordedonly to a chiefess. 

The waiting Indians stood back from about these two principal figuresin the courtyard, and Paul Kilbuck, with the Indian woman beside him, turned to face the white woman on the platform whose favors he hoped towin. 

He felt himself splendidly barbaric in the costume of a Shaman. Thegreens and blues and yellows of his royal Chilcat blanket and dancingshirt set off his dark beard and dead-white skin. Carved woodeneagle-wings on each side of a tall hat crowned his hair. Below thisemblem of the Shaman spirit, the Unseeable, his eyes, narrow, pale anddangerous sent straight into those of Ellen a look that might have comedown through the red pages of history. 

She turned her face away with a frightened quickening of the pulses. 

The White Chief and Decitan took their places at the head of the Indianprocession which had been forming, and the long, fantastic line woundabout the courtyard and down the trail that led to the Village. Beforethe graveyard, with its totems and curious architecture of the dead, they stopped and began a mournful ululation. 

The wailing gradually gave way to the Potlatch songs in honor of thedeceased--songs of curious rhythm and halting cadences; songs with ahaunting plaintiveness that floated high above the throbbing of thedrums. 

On the platform the white inhabitants of Katleean waited in silenceuntil the procession came back once more to the courtyard. Then one byone they attached themselves to the line. 

About the excavation under the windows of the White Chief the funeralparty halted. Kilbuck, his handsome, barbaric head towering above all, spoke to the natives in Thlinget a few moments. Then one by one thesmall boxes containing ashes of the dead were handed to him. Helowered them into the grave. As the last one settled on the bottom hestepped back, flinging one corner of his fringed blanket from hisshoulder. He exulted in the sense of power such an occasion gave him. He liked to feel that in the hollow of his hand he held every soul inKatleean. 

Perhaps in his heart there still lurked some faint respect for thedead. Perhaps he merely intended to impress the white women in hisaudience, as from under the bizarre robe of his heathen office heproduced a prayer-book, and in the voice he knew so well how tomodulate, read the service for the dead. At the close he swept thegathering with an inclusive glance. First in Thlinget, then in Englishhe addressed his listeners:

"People of the Kagwantans, of the Wuckitans, of the Yakutats, and theGanahadi, "--His voice made music of the Indians names. --"Listen to thetalk I make and remember. Always, while I am the White Chief andMedicine Man of the Kagwantans, I will watch over the ashes of my brownbrothers and sisters. Always, when the nights of the Big Snows come toKatleean and the spirit-lights whisper in the North in the moon ofKokwa-ha, I, the Unseeable, will watch. . . . Always, in the moons ofthe Big Salmon run, the Hat-dee-se, when there is no darkness in thenights of the North, I, the Unseeable, will watch. . . . I, who havebrought you the great white medicine of the Letquan, the Snow People, Imake the Big Medicine now--I make it with the sacred book of the WhiteShamans. " He held one corner of his Chilcat blanket tightly againsthis breast with the prayer-book, and with the other out at arm'slength, swept the fringes slowly back and forth over the grave. "Imake the Big Medicine. . . . My brothers and sisters may rest in peaceat Katleean, for no witch can dig down into the grave below to workevil spells. . . . I, the White Chief, the Unseeable, I am alwayswatching. "

The solemn old Indians of the tribe nodded their masked headsapprovingly and gave grunts of satisfaction. Kilbuck turned away as ifa bit weary of his role and walked toward the trading-post. The whitemembers of his audience followed him. 

After the departure of their foreign visitors the natives assumed analertness strangely at variance with their usual stolid demeanor. Kilbuck, with his white guests, watched them from his living-roomwindows. 

Blanket after blanket was spread over the boxes of ashes in the grave. Bolt after bolt of bright calico was torn into streamers and flung intothe open space. Cooking utensils and food came next; then trinkets ofevery kind that might cheer the souls of the departed on their journeyover the Spirit Trail. At the very last, Swimming Wolf, who hadheretofore taken little part in the ceremonies, stepped forward with atiny phonograph, a rare possession since it was the only one in theVillage. The Indian carefully wound it up and lowered it into thehole. There was a craning of masked heads, . . . A period of gruntingapproval, . . . And then faintly from below came a whirring, asputtering and a high, cracked voice of announcement. The WhiteChief's face wore its sardonic smile as the gravel was being shoveledinto the grave for the little tin phonograph was bravely playing:_There'll be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight_. 

CHAPTER VII

THE POTLATCH DANCE

Evening found the Boreland family, attended by Kayak Bill, taking thebeach trail to the Village. It was well past nine o'clock and thetwilight had merged into the soft, luminous duskiness that wouldcontinue until the sun came up at two-thirty in the morning. 

In the gloom a hundred blanket-covered canoes lined the crescent beachthat sloped gently upward to a strip of gravel before the row of Indianhouses. The totems of the Thunder-bird and the Bear stood out highagainst the sky. Before the Potlatch-house an Indian dog, small, coyote-like, yelped shrilly as he tugged at the rope which fastened himto a stake. The air throbbed to the incessant beat of drums and themuffled chant that rose and fell inside the meeting-place. 

The Potlatch-house, older than the oldest Indian at Katleean, had beenbuilt before ever a white man had set foot on the beach of the Village. The low building, over sixty feet square, was made of huge, hand-hewedyellow cedar planks standing vertically. The gable ends faced the bayand all across the triangular space above the eves was painted thestartling conventionalized head of a wolf. The ears rose weirdly fromthe gable edge of the roof. Two monster eyes glared through thetwilight above a grinning, squared mouth twenty feet across. On eitherside of the oval door stood a totem, hollow at the base and containingthe ashes of long-dead chiefs. The corner-posts were carved intolife-size grotesque figures of men. 

Between Ellen and Jean sauntered Kayak Bill. Their half-fearful looksat the Potlach-house were inspired by the stories he had told, with acertain grim amusement, to these two fair women of the South. Theywere stories told to him over the hootch-cup by the wickedOld-Woman-Who-Would-Not-Die; tales of the long-ago heathen times whenthe Potlatch-house was erected and dedicated with human sacrifices;when for each of those carved corner-posts a slave had been murderedand placed at the bottom of the hole that was to receive it; tales ofscores of slaves who had been slaughtered upon its completion; tales ofanimal-like orgies those walls had seen--cannibal feasts, torture ofwitches, fiendish carousals about the burning dead. 

Tame, indeed, in comparison were the Potlatches of this day, even whenthe savage spirit was stimulated by the white man's fire-water. Andtonight there could be none of that. In honor of the white women, Kayak Bill was keeping drink from the Indians this one evening. 

Ellen looked at Jean apprehensively as they pressed closely on theheels of Shane Boreland and followed him through the low, oval door ofthe Potlatch-house. 

Inside the air was thick with the smoke of many pipes. Through thehaze the wall lights burned dimly. All about the sides of the greatroom squatted natives in their Potlatch finery. At the farther end satthe drummers beating in booming rhythm on war-drums made of hair-sealstretched over rings from hollowed logs. Never during the three daysof the Potlatch did those drumbeats cease. 

Near the doorway was a small slightly-raised platform. On this, in hisShaman robes, sat the White Chief of Katleean. As they ascended thestep he rose ceremoniously to greet them and indicated some chairs nearhim which had been placed in anticipation of their coming. 

When the white visitors had seated themselves the drum-beats took on aquicker staccato rhythm. There was a craning of necks toward thedoorway. Another moment and the chief dancer of the Potlatch enteredthe oval. 

Dancing in backwards so that the decorations on his blanket weredisplayed to the best advantage he sang a halting Thlinget song andscattered the down of eagles about him. In the middle of the room hewhirled and Ellen recognized Swimming Wolf. 

"If the feathers fall on you, " said the White Chief leaning toward her, "you'll have good luck all the year. "

Other dancers backed in and took their places about the drummers. AsSwimming Wolf stepped forward the drum-beats died to a muffledsoftness. The dancing sticks beat the floor in a low, sensuoussyncopation that stirred the blood. The long-fringed blanket lent awild grace to the Indian's swaying, stamping figure. His crouchedsteps seemed part of his faint, humming chant. 

Curious at first, and a little apprehensive, Ellen looked on, her handclasping that of her husband. After a while, the steady pulsing of thedrums banished that something faintly like foreboding with which thecivilized woman looks for the first time on primitive ceremonies; iteven stirred in her something that she seemed once to have known andforgotten. 

By the time Swimming Wolf had finished his steps she had withdrawn herhand from that of Shane and was anticipating with eager interest whatwas coming next. 

She had not long to wait for the oval door swung on its peg and intothe room lumbered a huge brown bear so true to life in form and gaitthat both she and Jean gave a startled gasp. The White Chief smiled ashe leaned toward them. 

"It's only Hoots-noo, Heart-of-a-Grizzly, dressed in a bear hide!"

The Indian must have spent many hours studying the actions and habitsof his ferocious namesake, for in the pantomime that followed he gave aperfect imitation of the great bear of the North. Shambling downtoward the center of the floor he paused. Striking a pose he made amotion as if jumping into a river to catch a salmon. With afloundering of his ungainly body he brought the fish up on the bank ofthe stream. He turned his uplifted muzzle from side to side as ifscenting danger and presently proceeded to tear the fish into pieces, his head continually moving as though looking and listening for thehunter's rifle. 

Hoots-noo's performance was followed by other clever impersonations andby more solo dances of blanketed Indians. All the dances, the WhiteChief told Ellen, were taken from the movements of the wild things ofthe North--the slinking of the fox across the tundra, the leaping ofthe King salmon in the river, the flight of the eagle over the fishinggrounds. 

When the general dance was announced every Thlinget buck sprang to hisfeet and sought a partner of the opposite sex. About the room in acircle the fantastic figures leaped with savage abandon. When thetired couples sought the resting places against the walls again andeach buck gallantly presented his partner with a small bag ofraisins--a custom introduced by the enterprising white traders. 

Faster and more softly came the boom and thud of drums and dancingsticks, until the urge of them caused even Ellen's feet to beat time tothe primitive music. She glanced at her sister. Jean's eyes weresparkling. Her lithe body was swaying and her hands moving in rhythmwith the Thlinget's dance. 

"For two cents, Ellen, I'd dance with my admirer, Swimming Wolf!" Shelaughed in her sister's ear. "I feel the stir of the blood of ourremote ancestors, who must have stepped it off in some such manner asthis. . . . Look at your son, El!"

Loll, by now regarding every Indian as his friend, was standing beforeSenott. That dusky belle was resting after a mad, joyous whirl withHoots-noo, Heart-of-a-Grizzly. The boy's head was nodding withearnestness as he talked to her, and he was playing with the dozen goldand silver bracelets which adorned the gay one's shapely arms. Suddenly, with a laugh, Senott rose from the floor and grasping theboy's hands began to circle about the room with him. The drummers andholders of the dancing sticks showed their white teeth in delightedgrins and quickened the rhythm of their music. 

"By ginger, " said Shane, his lean face alight with interest, "I'd liketo shake a leg myself. Ellen--" he turned to his wife--"what you say?"

Ellen shook her head, smiling. "Take Jean, dear. She's wild to dance. "

Shane turned to his sister-in-law. Laughing, she gave him her hand andthe two stepped down and joined the bizarre throng. The smilingnatives paused a moment to watch as the white couple improvised stepsto suit the music, then the dance went on as before. 

The drum-beats grew wilder, more stirring. The room grew warmer andthe lights burned dimmer. Kayak Bill sitting between Ellen and PaulKilbuck, attempted a monologue, but finding no listeners, gave it up topuff contentedly. 

The fumes of Kayak's pipe seemed overly strong to Ellen. She began tofeel the need of fresh air. She glanced at her sister and her husbandas they passed her, laughing over an intricate step they told her wasthe "Bear Paw. " Kayak Bill and the White Chief seemed buried in theirown thoughts. Ellen rose, looked about her a moment and then slippedquietly out of the oval door into the cool, star-spangled night. 

After the close air of the Potlatch-house, it was good to draw in thefreshness of the out-of-doors. The two tall totems framed a goldennaked moon that hung above the hills across the bay. The shimmeringpath from its glow threw into silhouette the prows of the big canoesdrawn up on the beach. Ellen walked down the sandy path toward them. Pausing she leaned against one and gazed idly out across the water. 

For the moment the chanting of the natives had ceased, and thedrum-beats sounded muffled and soothing. Weird and lonely from adistant ridge came the faint call of a wolf, presaging, though she didnot know it, an early winter. She became aware of the aromatic savorsof the wild--sea smells, the forest breath, the tang of camp-smokes. She was beginning to like these things. 

There was a sense of dream-like unreality about the night--about herwhole life at Katleean. Sometimes she caught herself marveling thatshe was not more startled, more surprised at the new ways of life thathad come to her, for it is only the seasoned traveler in the littleknown places of the world who ceases to marvel at the adaptability ofman to new and strange environment. Alaska, especially, Ellen thought, seemed to work strange spells on those who came to dwell within herborders. What would be considered melodramatic and foolish south of53, became somehow, natural and fitting above the line. 

Her drifting thoughts were suddenly checked by the sound of softfootsteps in the sand behind her. She turned swiftly. Her dreamy, contemplative mood changed to one closely akin to panic, as out of theshadows tall and dominant in his Potlatch robes, the White Chiefstalked toward her. 

She had no tangible reason for fearing to be alone with the trader ofKatleean, and she despised herself now for the impulse that urged herto run as fast as she could from the man. Mentally upbraiding herselffor her foolishness she forced a smile of greeting and in her haste tosay something that would put the meeting on a commonplace basis, burstout with the inane and obvious:

"Isn't it a beautiful night, Mr. Kilbuck?"

The White Chief stopped beside her and flung back the blanket from hisshoulder. There was a lawless gleam in the narrow eyes he turned onher and she was not unaware of a certain savage, picturesque appeal inhim. She felt again a strange, undesired impulse that had troubled herever since her first meeting with the man--the urge to go close andlook deep into his pale, hypnotic eyes. 

"On nights like this, Mrs. Boreland, " he said, his tones low, almostcaressing, "I always think of those lines--perhaps you know them:

 "'Press close, magnetic, nourishing Night! Night of the South Winds! Night of the few large stars! Still, nodding Night. Mad, naked summer night!'" . . . 

Despite herself, Ellen thrilled under the magic of his voice. He wenton: "It's the memory of such nights that bring me back to this countryyear after year, and then . . . When I return . . . There is only themocking beauty of their loneliness. "

Ellen knew but little of the "good, grey poet, " but at the incongruityof his quoting she gazed with a new curiosity at this tall figure inthe heathen splendor of a Thlinget witch-doctor. 

"To be satisfying, " he said softly, "beauty like this must be sharedwith a loved woman. . . . " his sweeping gesture indicating the moonlitbay of Katleean. "You are the first white woman to share it with me. "

He stepped closer to her. Though there were three feet between themshe felt his presence as a tangible thing. She stirred uneasily. Thedull throb of the drums filled a moment's space. 

"I have loved many women, " his low voice went on, "women--of asort--but never anyone like. . . . " There was something tenderlypersonal in the omitted word. "Sometimes . . . I wonder . . . If Imight not be a better man if I had someone like you to stand beside mewhen winter nights come, and watch the Northern Lights. . . . "

Kilbuck looked dreamily away toward the peaks raising their subtleloveliness to the stars. Doubtless he must have said the same thingsslightly varied to many women in the States, but never before hadNature provided such a setting for his posing. Doubtless it had alwaysmade a favorable appeal, for Ellen knew that man, though doing exactlyas he pleases, is ever holding out his hand to woman to be uplifted, and the mother instinct in the feminine heart seldom fails to respond. 

Ellen felt suddenly that the situation was getting beyond her. As sheleaned against the canoe she tried in vain to think of some ordinarything which would change the current of the White Chief's thoughts andenable her to get away to the Potlatch-house without his becoming awareof her perturbation. Fumbling uneasily with the handkerchief in herhand she dropped it. As she stooped to pick it up an exclamationescaped her. She had been resting her head against the up-curving prowof the canoe, and now, as she moved, she became aware, by a sharppainful tug, that her hair had become entangled in some torn rivetsembedded in the tarpaulin. 

Instantly Kilbuck was behind her reaching across her shoulders torelease the strands. They refused to come away. 

After a moment of ineffectual tugging, Ellen removed a pin from thesoft, thick coil. Loosed by their efforts with the tangle, her hairshook down and tumbled in a lustrous mass below her waist. She feltKilbuck's fingers working at the strands about the broken rivet. 

Suddenly he was still, his hand grasping a long strand of the mass. 

"Mrs. Boreland, there is a superstition among the Thlingets to theeffect that whenever a man carries a lock of a white woman's hair he isprotected from any kind of violence--no matter what he may have done todeserve punishment. Your hair is of such a rare shade and texture, there would be no mistaking a lock of it, would there?"

With a swift movement his hand slipped beneath the Chilcat blanket. There was a glint of steel, and the next moment he had severed the lockfrom the shining mass. Ellen started back, snatching up her hair towind it into its accustomed knot, but before she could utter the wordsthat sprang to her lips there was a sound of running footsteps. 

"Ellen! Ellen!" came the voice of Jean, as the girl sped toward themdown the pathway. "I've been looking everywhere for you!"

She glanced at the White Chief with surprise, suspicion and disapprovalsucceeding each other in her eyes. She made no effort to conceal herdislike of the trader of Katleean. 

"Come, Ellen. Let's go back to Shane. "

Jean took her sister's hand and the White Chief watched theirretreating figures for several moments. . . . From beneath his blankethe drew the long lock of hair he had stolen. One hand passed gently, caressingly along the length of it. It clung softly to his finger likea live thing. . . . The hair of native women was long and thick, butcoarse, and even after long residence in the trader's quarters seemedto hold the faint salmon tang of the smoke-house. But this. . . . Hislip lifted in his wolfish smile. It would be difficult, very difficultindeed for a wife to explain his possession of such a trifle. . . . Heheld it against his mouth. The faint perfume of the white womanthrilled him. His nostrils twitched. He felt his eyes grow narrow aswhen he sighted game on the trail. . . . Suddenly, as if in decision, he turned and walked rapidly up the beach toward his quarters at thetrading-post. 

In his living-room, dark now except for a few dull embers in thefireplace, he lighted a candle and crossed to the corner beneath thehigh shelf of books. He drew aside a large hair-seal wall-pocket ofIndian make, and fumbled a moment. A small door swung open revealing ahollow in the log wall. 

Very carefully the White Chief wrapped the lock of hair in ahandkerchief and laid it away in the hiding place. As carefully hedrew out a small moose-hide poke and putting the candle on a nearbytable, sat down before it. He removed the tag attached to the top andread the inscription: "Eldorado Creek gold, " then he loosened thestring. 

On the wall behind the man, weird, gigantic shadows, born of theflickering candle flame, leaped and danced. In the crude light andshade his barbaric gorgeousness became doubly sinister, as he pushedthe strange shaman headdress farther back on his dark head. 

He wiped an ash-tray carefully and poured the contents of the poke intoit. Beautifully yellow and gleaming it fell in a goldenstream--perhaps two ounces of gold dust. With a satisfied nod he putthe poke of dust into his pocket and a few minutes later stepped outinto the night. 

The sound of drums and dancing came up from the Village as he crossedthe dim courtyard toward the light that shone palely from Silvertip'swindow. As he entered the cabin the Swede, still nursing the brokenhead that kept him from participating in the Potlatch festivities, groaned dismally in greeting. 

There were a few perfunctory words, then for half an hour Kilbucktalked earnestly. Silvertip protested; he whined; but he listened. There was mention of Boreland and beach sand; of gold dust and KonKlayu. After much persuasion Silvertip consented to do what the WhiteChief outlined. 

Kilbuck held out the small bag of gold and the pale-eyed Swede reachedfor it and put it away under his pillow. 

The trader rose to go. As he draped his robe about him, his eye caughta movement among the blankets in the top bunk. He started. 

"God, you fool!" he whispered hoarsely, leaning down and graspingSilvertip's arm. "Why didn't you tell me you had some one here. Whois it?"

The Swede groaned. "By yingo, Ay plumb forget about te tarn jungyack-ass Harlan. He coom in har dis noon time drunk like hal, witt'ree bottle of hootch. He tal me he iss lonesome. He iss drunk now, Chief. He can't har not'ing. "

Kilbuck drew down the blankets from the head of the man in the upperbunk. The boyish sleeping face was flushed. Dark matted hair clung tothe damp forehead and there was a sickening odor of vile liquor in theair. A long moment the trader looked to see if Harlan would open hiseyes. Then with a contemptuous laugh he flung the blanket over thelean young face. 

"Nothing to fear from him if he drank three bottles of Kayak Bill'sbrew. "

He stepped out of the door into the courtyard, adjusted his headdressand humming a dance-hall ballad, swung down the beach path toward theIndian Village. 

CHAPTER VIII

THE OUTFIT

A week later, in the snug little cabin of the _Hoonah_, Ellen Borelandsat opposite a folding table, where her husband, humming contentedly, was adjusting a gold-scale. Ellen's hands were busy with mending buther brow puckered anxiously and her eyes had purple shadows beneaththem. 

From the moment she had realized the loss of her lock of hair, herconflicting impressions of the White Chief of Katleean had crystallizedinto a certainty that he meant no good to herself or to her husband. That he desired her she had now no doubt, and while she knew in herheart that she was in no way responsible for this, she felt more keenlythan ever that baffling sense of guilt that had attached itself to hersince her first meeting with the man. It seemed some loathed feelingshared with the man and more gripping because of words never spoken. 

Another thing troubled her: Because of him she had told her husband alie--the first during her ten years of married life. Her mind wentback again and again to the scene. They had come back to their room atthe post the night of the Potlatch dance. Jean, full of enthusiasmover the events of the evening came in from her loft-room to talk itall over with her sister. Little Loll in a corner, was solemnlypracticing the bear-antics of Heart-of-a-Grizzly. Shane Boreland, aswas his custom, sat watching his wife comb out the long beautifultresses that were his pride. 

Suddenly he rose from his chair. "By ginger, El!" he exclaimed. "Whathave you done to your hair? Looks as if you had cut a chunk out ofit!" There was concern in his face as he picked up a handful andpointed out the severed portion to his sister-in-law. 

Ellen's blood seemed to turn to water. Her heart fluttered in herthroat. What explanation could she give this chivalrous, hot-heatedIrishman who loved her, and who, she knew from past experience, wouldshoot a man for less than the Chief had done? She valued above allthings the trust and loving companionship that had blessed her marriedlife. She hesitated, desperately seeking some plausible explanationthat would approach the truth. . . . Shane, she imagined, was lookingat her keenly now and there was a curious light in Jean's frank eyes. 

"I--I--cut it, dear, " she stammered, hiding her face under the veil ofher hair. "I--I cut it to send to mother in the next mail. "

The instant the lie was out she would have given a year of her life torecall it. She realized, too late, that it but opened the way forother lies. It placed her in the position of one obliged to carryindefinitely an unexploded bomb, which the least jar might set offcausing--who could tell what destruction. 

The next day she had insisted with more than her usual vigor onreturning to the schooner. Shane had consented reluctantly, but hewould not for the present accede to her wish to leave Katleean. He wasstubborn in his determination to learn all that was to be known aboutthe Island of Kon Klayu. 

Ellen recalled the events of the week. Her husband's enthusiasticreports of the Island gold. His talks with the carefully non-committaltrader and the thin-nosed, shifty-eye Silvertip; and finally hisdecision to spend the winter on the Island in search of the preciousmetal. Shane was sitting now at the table pouring some shining dustinto a saucer and studying the "colors" as they fell. 

"The lure of raw gold, Ellen!" he mused looking up at her with glowingdark eyes. "There's no greater magnet for a man in the world, littlefellow--except the love of a woman, " he added softly with the smilethat had won his wife's heart ten years ago and made her happy insharing his shifting fortunes. 

"But if I make a go of it this trip, Ellen, I give you my word thatI'll go back to the States and settle down somewhere, --any place youwish. Look at it--just look at it, El!" He held the saucer so that itcaught the sunlight streaming in through the round cabin window. "ByJove, it ought to go eighteen dollars to the ounce! It's clean as adog's tooth! Silvertip says he and some of his mates panned it one dayat Kon Klayu while the _Sophie Sutherland_ took on water. . . . Ofcourse the party sent over by Kilbuck's Company didn't find much, butfrom what I hear they were a hootch-drinking lot who knew nothing ofmining, and thought only of drawing their pay and keeping drunk. Youcan see for yourself, Ellen, what this northern hootch does to aman--young Harlan is a good example. Gone to the dogs in three months, though I can't help liking the fellow. "

He shifted the gold dust again and bent his head to peer at it througha small microscope. During the moment's silence came the lap of theincoming tide against the hull of the schooner. 

"That reminds me, Ellen, " Boreland went on. "The Chief received wordyesterday from a trading-post down the coast that a revenue cutter isbound this way on a tour of inspection. Kayak Bill's going to hide hisstill and go into retirement until the cutter has finishedinvestigating. Seems they're always suspecting him of making hootch!"Shane chuckled with amusement. "Funny old devil--Kayak Bill! I likethe old cuss. I've asked him to come over to the Island with me for acouple of months until the Chief brings the _Hoonah_ with our winteroutfit. "

At the mention of the _Hoonah_ Ellen glanced about the snug, cheerfulcabin that had been her home for many adventurous months. This staunchlittle schooner had brought her and her loved ones safely over hundredsof miles that separated her from her home port. Thoughts came to hernow of wild, stormy nights when she had awakened in her reeling bunk tothe scream of wind in the rigging, the roar of waves, the tramp ofhurried feet overhead and the shouting of voices. At those times sheknew Shane stood at the wheel in the drenching rain giving his ordersfor the reefing of sails. During the first days of the voyage theawakening in a gale had always filled her with a great fear--a fear notfor herself but for her family, her little son. She would clasp thesleeping boy more closely in her arms and lie with straining muscles, waiting listening, every sense painfully alert and her eyeshypnotically watching the garments on the opposite wall swing out andback with the roll of the ship. Gradually as the schooner righteditself after every roll Ellen's nerves would relax. Unclasping herarms, she would snuggle close to the back of the bunk, --the few inchesof the _Hoonah's_ hull that separated her and her loved ones from theblack, bull-throated billows that sought to swallow them. The feel ofthe cool wood brought a sense of safety, a certainty that with Shane'sstrong, thin hands on the wheel the _Hoonah_ would bring them allsafely through any danger of the sea. Then bit by bit approachingsleep would dim the fury of the gale until at last it was but a lullabyzephyr wafting her, like her little son, once more into the harbor ofdreams. . . . 

She had not realized how dear the schooner had grown to her until shehad signed, against her better judgment, the bill-of-sale thattransferred the vessel to Paul Kilbuck. On the reef-sown coast of KonKlayu it appeared there was no harbor where a ship might find shelter, and Shane needed money for his winter outfit. Half the purchase pricethe trader had paid down--the other half was to be given Boreland whenKilbuck took the remainder of the outfit to Kon Klayu later in the fall. 

Ellen aroused herself from her reverie. Shane had been speaking someminutes and his first words had been lost to her. He was quoting:

 "One more trip for the golden treasure That will last us all our lives!"

Life to Shane was a sweet and wonderful thing. Though there had beenyears of hardship and struggle and often failure in the mining game, hestill retained an eager joy in existence, a faith in men and women andsomething of the wonder of a boy. Perhaps it was because the place ofhis questing had ever been the forests, the mountains, the clean, unpeopled places. 

His present life of a prospector, sailing his little schooner boldlyacross dangerous reaches of ocean, through the intricate lovelywaterways of Alaska's Inland Sea, poking her prow into hidden crescentcoves, trying his luck with a gold-pan on unknown streams, always surethat the next shift of the gravel in the pan would reveal afortune--all this made life fascinating for Shane Boreland. No matterhow far short realization fell, he was always ready with another dream, always eager when a new adventure beckoned. 

And now it was the mysterious Island of Kon Klayu. 

Stripped of the golden glamour with which Shane had invested it, Ellenknew it to be an island but five miles long and a mile and a half wide, which lay out in the North Pacific ninety miles from the nearest land;an island uninhabited and completely surrounded by dangerous reefs andshoals; shunned by ships and spoken of as a death trap by sailors. Butone tree, other than alder and willow, grew upon it. Three hundredfeet above sea-level on the high, flat top, a lone and stunted sprucerose from the tundra and breasted the heavy gales that swept the ocean. For firewood there were but the drift logs of the beach. There were noanimals of any kind. The foxes and a pet cub bear taken there by theAlaska Fur and Trading Company at the time of the fox-farm experimenthad been killed off by passing whalers who were sometimes forced ashorefor water. 

Shane had entertained no idea of allowing his wife and family toaccompany him to the Island. All his powers of persuasion had beenused to induce Ellen to stay at Katleean with her sister and Loll asguests of the White Chief until the tall steamer going south shouldtake them back to the States. The trader, Ellen knew, had taken thisarrangement for granted and she was certain she detected something ofbaffled rage in him when she informed him on her last visit to theshore, that since she could not dissuade her husband from going to theIsland of Kon Klayu she and her family would accompany him. 

It was in vain the White Chief pointed out to her that there were notprovisions enough at the post to supply Shane with a complete winteroutfit. He must sail at once for Kon Klayu in order to prepare for thewinter's work, and the autumn steamer bringing more supplies was notdue for six weeks. It was in vain Kilbuck assured her that he, himself, would take her to the Island later on when he went over withthe remainder of Shane's outfit after the arrival of the steamer. Ellen was obdurate in her decision and once having committed herselfshe became a different woman. Whatever misgivings she held in regardto the enterprise she kept to herself. She plunged whole-heartedlyinto the preparations for the journey, becoming at once the practicaldirector of the commissary. She looked carefully over the stock ofgoods at the trading-post and obtained far more in the way of suppliesthan the easy-going Shane, inclined to trust to the trader's judgment, would have done. And Kilbuck, for some reason, seemed disinclined tofurnish even as much as his stock would allow. 

For the past week Ellen eluded every effort made by the White Chief tosee her alone. Since the night of the Potlatch dance she had talkedwith him only in the presence of a third person. Strange to say shefound now that she could look him squarely in the eyes, but when shedid so it was as if steel met steel. The feeling that she was playinga game of wits against the autocrat of Katleean was not without itsinterest for her. It was impossible entirely to conceal her growinghostility toward the man, and she knew that her wordless antagonism wasfelt by Kilbuck. To her anxiety she knew also that instead ofdiminishing his appetite for her, it increased it. She was growingeager to be away. 

The outfitting went forward daily. Jean and Loll spent many hoursashore exploring the vicinity with Senott or Kayak Bill. Sometimes thevisitors caught a glimpse of the tweed-clad young man who seemed soquiet and aloof, and who, even when not drinking, avoided them all. Ellen observed a certain interest in him growing in Jean. A tentativequestion or two put to Kayak Bill revealed this, though it availed hernothing. The old hootch-maker, muttering something about "everybody tohis own cemetery" had branched off to relate something he had "hearntell" when he was "a-punchin' o' cows down in Texas. "

Ellen, as well as Jean, wondered at the presence in Katleean of such aman as Harlan, and the reason for his connection with the deadNaleenah. Understanding of another's lapses comes with years and Jean, Ellen knew, was too young fully to realize what this young man'sdissipation portended. 

Ellen kept a sharp eye on Harlan. Though she herself shared Jean'smild curiosity and faint pity, she managed to keep her sister at a safedistance from him. She intended very carefully to guard Jean. 

Sometimes, in the evening, when the girl stood on the after-deck of the_Hoonah_, her violin tucked beneath her chin, her eyes on the dreamingradiance of the sunset, Ellen studied her as she played. She wondered, if in her heart, the young girl played to him, and if he heard. Andonce, to her anxiety, as she sat listening to the silvery musicfloating out over the water, she had caught a shadow moving on theshore--had seen a figure move stealthily down a hidden trail to thePoint beyond the Indian Village and lie behind a great boulder, listening. . . . 

The outfitting for the Island was nearly complete now. Each of the newacquaintances at Katleean contributed, with friendly intent, to thepreparations of the departing travelers. In the cabin of young Harlan, which had been the home of the deceased Add-'em-up Sam were shelvesladen with dusty books, old magazines and piles of ancient newspapers. At Kayak Bill's suggestion the bookkeeper had packed the best of theseinto a box and the old hootch-maker had borne the package to Jean, remarking that "readin' matter might come in mighty handy on theIsland. " The box was placed with Shane's outfit stacked in a corner ofthe store. 

Ellen and Jean were looking through the collection one afternoon, judging the departed Sam by his taste in literature, which they foundto be surprisingly good. As Jean turned the pages of _TreasureIsland_, a paper fluttered to the floor. The girl picked it up, reading aloud the caption over a crude, penciled map: "The Island ofKon Klayu. " She unfolded it and was smoothing out the creases that shemight better study the drawing when Loll came running in from theplatform in front of the store. His freckled face was puckered withsuppressed grief, his grey eyes abrim with the tears he was too proudto shed. 

"Mother--Jean--look at poor Kobuk, " he faltered, with a gulp thatthreatened to send the drops tumbling over his brown cheeks. 

Kobuk, the big huskie, had wagged himself into the hearts of everymember of the Boreland family. Ellen knew that Shane had offered theWhite Chief a good price for the animal, but the trader had refused topart with his lead dog. Even when it was discovered that the huskiehad developed mange Kilbuck would not give him up, though he didnothing to relieve him. Shane, busy with his outfitting, found time totake care of Kobuk, rubbing him every day with a mixture of sulphur, lard and carbolic acid until he was practically cured. Jean and Lollhad attended these treatments taking turns holding the bowl of sulphursalve and encouraging the restive Kobuk to be a good dog and take hismedicine. Now it was with the utmost pity and concern that they beheldhim slinking to his corner in the store, for he had been out on aporcupine hunt and his nose, his entire head was literally bristlingwith needle-like quills. 

Ellen had seen irate dog-owners spend hours with a pair of pinchersremoving quills from their animals, and she knew that even one of thosetiny needles, if overlooked, could work its way straight throughKobuk's body. If it struck a vital organ, he would die. 

The dog eased himself into his corner and tried to rest his head on hispaws. The quills under his muzzle stabbed him and he raised it with asharp yelp of pain. Jean and Buddie sprang toward him with expressionsof sympathy and endearment. The dog whimpered, raising his soft, darkeyes to their faces as if begging for help in his trouble. Jean, onthe verge of tears, sank down beside him, but Ellen, thinking torelieve him, ran to the living-quarters back of the store to get a pairof pinchers from Decitan. 

When she returned she stood a moment half-concealed by the curtain inthe doorway. Jean was soothingly stroking one of Kobuk's big paws. Near her stood the White Chief who evidently had just come in. Boththumbs were hooked beneath his scarlet belt, and he was looking down atthe dog. Kobuk at that moment lowered his head and tried to workhimself farther back in his corner, but the effort brought out anotheryelp of pain. 

The man's eyes became mere slits. 

"Ah, damn you, so you've done it again, have you?" he said with asoftness that in some indefinable way chilled the blood. "Well, thistime we'll let the quills work through your brainless skull--or--Here, Hoots-noo--" he turned to the Indian who was entering the store. "Take this cur out and shoot him. I'm tired of having quills yankedout of him. "

With a cry of protest Jean came to her feet. 

"Oh, no, no! Please!" Apparently forgetful of all but the safety ofthe dog, the girl clasped both her little hands about the man's arm. Her hazel eyes pleaded. Loll, too, was clinging to the trader's otherhand, stroking it and looking up beseechingly into his bearded face. 

"Oh, Chief, please, _please_ don't shoot Kobuk! We want him! We'lltake care of him!"

The White Chief paid no attention to the boy, but he looked down intothe face of the girl and laughed unpleasantly. 

"The little squaw with white feet can be very nice to me when she wantssomething, " he said. "What are you willing to give me for Kobuk, mylittle lady?"

At his tone the girl shrank back, but Loll, sturdily refusing to beignored, interrupted hastily:

"_She_ ain't got nothing you want, Chief!" He began tuggingdesperately at a string about his waist which bound to him his mostcherished possession--an old broken revolver bestowed on him by KayakBill. "Here, I'll give you my pistol for Kobuk!" The earnest littlefellow held out the weapon with an air of certainty which indicatedthat there could be no refusal of such a treasure. 

The White Chief sat down leisurely on a box of pilot bread as if tobetter enjoy the situation. 

"No, my boy, " he said with another laugh. "Your disdainful aunt isgoing to pay me for Kobuk in coin which you will learn more of bye andbye. " He turned to the girl. "I'm not such a bad fellow, Jean, " hecontinued with an attempt at an ingenuous smile. "Come, kiss me onceand the dogs is yours. "

Over Jean's face swept conflicting emotions, disgust, contempt for theman, pity for the moaning dog whose life depended on her decision. TheIndian, stolid and unseeing, had already laid a hand on Kobuk's collar. 

Ellen, unable to remain silent longer, started forward unnoticed by theothers in the tenseness of the moment, but before she had taken twosteps Loll had taken charge of the situation. 

Going close he rested a hand on either knee of the trader and looked upearnestly into the man's pale eyes. 

"Chief, " he spoke half-apologetically as man to man, "you see Jean--"he indicated his aunt with a tilt of his head--"Jean doesn't like tokiss strange men--but I don't mind. " And before anyone realized whatwas happening, the boy had taken Kilbuck's face between two small handsand pressed cool, childish lips to the man's forehead. 

Jean caught her nephew in her arms impulsively. "You darling!" Halflaughing, half crying she buried her face in his neck. "You darling!"

"Well, that's settled!" said Loll in his matter of fact tones as hewriggled to free himself. "Kobuk's ours now. Thank you, Chief. I'llhave--" He broke off with a shout to welcome Ellen, whom he had justseen. "Hey, mothey! He's ours now. Gimme the pinchers!" He tookthem from Ellen's hand and started toward the quill-filled Kobuk, who, sensing perhaps a change in his fortunes, had risen expectantly to hisfeet. 

Shane, entering the doorway at that moment, was apprized of theaddition to the family. The next two hours were spent by the Borelandsin extracting quills from the repentant Kobuk. For the first time inhis life, perhaps, the pain-racked animal was soothed and cheeredduring the hated operation by quaint old Irish terms of endearment, punctuated with advice. 

"But there'll be no more porky hunting for you, me lad, " Shane assuredthe dog as he pulled the last quill. "For the very first fine day wehave we're off for the Island of Kon Klayu and divil a thing you'llfind there to chase but sand fleas!"

CHAPTER IX

HARLAN WAKES UP

Gregg Harlan had watched with interest the Boreland's preparation fordeparture to the island of Kon Klayu. For the first time in his lifehe was doing some serious thinking; and ever since the Potlatch he hadbeen seeing himself in no complimentary light. 

His chief source of self-disgust was his way of taking the informationthat the Borelands, including Jean Wiley, thought him a squaw-man. Inhis dejection his thoughts went back time and again to those fewmoments of silent companionship when he had stood beside the girl inthe dusk and watched the funeral canoes come in. . . . Why hadn't he, after the White Chief told him of his reputed connection with Naleenah, why hadn't he followed Jean and explained? True, the shock andsurprise of the thing had momentarily swept him off his feet, but whyhad he, in foolish reckless resentment against unjust circumstances, rushed off instead to the cabin of Kayak Bill and taken glass afterglass of the stuff that had put him in such a state of oblivion that hewas unable to take any part in the Potlatch festivities? Since then hehad been too ashamed to approach either of the white women. He feltthat he must first do something to win their respect. 

During his twenty-five years Harlan had been a drifter along thepleasant ways of least resistance. This was, perhaps, because he hadnever been called upon to shoulder responsibility. Six months before, because of this tendency more than because he had been in love, he hadfound himself involved in a foolish but unpleasant financial tanglebrought about by a plump, perfumed, pleasure-loving little blonde. This small person from an eastern state had made his former knowledgeof the hectic night-life of San Francisco seem but a tuning up of theorchestra before the overture. . . . After the inevitable parting ofthe ways, he had found himself obliged to call upon his irate anddisgusted father for financial assistance. He had done this oftenbefore--so often that this last episode, more scarlet than any of theothers, brought about a crisis. Later, penniless, but debtor to hisfather only, he had departed under a cloud of paternal disapproval totake the position of bookkeeper at faraway Katleean. It was then thathe decided he was through with women. 

At the time he believed it, as all men do who make a similar decision, but up here in the North he found that a white woman meant more to menthan in the States. After three months in Katleean a white woman hadcome to stand for the cleanness and the decencies of life. He foundhimself longing to be near and speak to these two visiting women of hisown kind. He had heard of the "woman hunger" of Alaska and recognizedin himself the symptoms of that state which causes even the mosthardened misogynist to travel a hundred perilous miles merely to lookon a white woman's face and hear her voice. 

And music--the music of Jean's violin drew him like a magnet. Everyevening when she played on the afterdeck of the _Hoonah_ he slippeddown to the Point beyond the Indian Village and listened--listenedhungrily, with a longing to join her and explain his stupid innocencein connection with the dead Naleenah. His youth called to hers, and hewanted this clean-hearted girl to think well of him. 

His drunkenness--but of course there was no excuse for that. Hedespised weakness in a man, and he had thought a good deal about hisown of late. The episode of Naleenah had brought him face to face withthe grim realities attending his drifting. 

Sometimes when he looked at Silvertip, lolling brutish and drunken onthe blankets of his bunk, Harlan had wondered what alcohol did for thesquaw-man. Once he had tried to outline to the one-time cook of the_Sophie Sutherland_, the beauties, as _he_ saw them, of getting drunk. He recalled now his sensations from the moment the alcohol begancreeping through his veins, softly, warmly, creating a glow about hisheart. Vistas then opened up before him. Romance and adventurebeckoned him. . . . Later, when the stimulant reached the centers ofhis brain, like the sentient fingers of a musician touching thekeyboard of his soul, it produced golden harmonies from those keyswhose tones are love, rhythm, color, appreciation of the beautiful:Inhibitions melted away in the amber light that enfolded him. Lovelythings he had read or seen or thought and kept to himself for lack ofexpression formed themselves into words of exquisite simplicity thatwere to his ear as pastel shades to the eye. He could sing then, as henever sang at other times. Music that was felt, rather than heard, swayed him, and his feet, his hands, his whole body longed to dance andinterpret this rhythm of the universe. 

Afterward came oblivion, a sweet forgetting of all unpleasantness, adivine sense of mingling without responsibility with the elements. 

But lately, he admitted reluctantly to himself, even in his moments ofkeenest alcoholic pleasure, he had been aware of an underthought thathis exalted mood must pass leaving him more colorless, more listless, more inclined to drift than before. It took more of Kayak's whisky toproduce an effect now than it had in the beginning. Perhaps, in time, he might even grow to be like Silvertip. . . . He shuddered. Itsickened and dismayed him to realize how the pale liquor had alreadyenslaved him--to what it might lead him. 

Another thing troubled him also. Ever since the night of the Potlatchdance which he had been too intoxicated to attend, something vague butinsistent at the back of his consciousness strove to make itselfremembered. Something he had heard in a half-drugged sleep. Somethingabout gold and Kon Klayu. An idea persisted that on him depended somegrave issue, but strive as he would he could not remember what it was. 

Once, as he swam in the dawn below the Point in an effort to clear hiscloudy brain, he prolonged his course until he found himself close tothe hull of the _Hoonah_. It gave him satisfaction to find thatdespite three months of heavy drinking at Katleean, his daily plunge inthe sea had kept him physically fit. He looked at the trim littleschooner cradling her sleeping crew. Green wavelets lapped against theclean white side, and below the water-line the red of the bottomglimmered. Her upcurving prow seemed to urge to sea adventures. Hewished he might go with Boreland to spend the winter on the Island ofKon Klayu. But this, he knew, was not possible. He had work to do atKatleean and it was time he was beginning it. And Ellen Boreland--hewas not unaware that she disapproved of him and did her best to keepher sister from friendship with him. . . . But--he might make the tripto the island and back to help Silvertip, whom Kilbuck had detailed topilot the _Hoonah_ to Kon Klayu. Silver was not fond of work. Hewould welcome the extra help in bringing the vessel home again from KonKlayu. . . . Kon Klayu! The words tantalized him afresh with hisfailure to remember the thing he should. Perhaps the sight of thatmysterious island, though he had never seen it, might bring back to himthe memory he sought. . . . He decided suddenly. When the _Hoonah_sailed for the Island of Kon Klayu he would be aboard, even though hehad to go as a deck hand!

CHAPTER X

THE PIGEON

A morning came favorable for the departure of the _Hoonah_. Sunshineflooded the peaks, the hills, the post of Katleean. A stiff easterlybreeze ruffled the bay into pale golden-green, and overhead long, white, scarf-like clouds streaked the blue. "Mares' tails" Kayak Billcalled them, as he stood on the beach shifting his sombrero forwardover his eyes so that he might better engage himself in what is knownin Alaska as "taking a look at the weather, " a proceeding which becomessecond nature to those who live in the North where travel depends onwind, tide and atmospheric conditions. 

The time of saying good-bye was at hand. Silvertip, with one of hiscountrymen and Gregg Harlan were already aboard the schooner. TheWhite Chief stood on a driftlog watching Boreland load the last triflesinto a whale-boat some hundred yards below him. One hand was hookedbeneath the trader's scarlet belt; the other held an unlightedcigarette. The wind ruffling the long dark hair on his bare head gavehim a lean and savage look. 

Kayak Bill, who had been unusually silent all morning, left offsearching for weather signs, and sauntered over to him. His eyesnarrowed slightly as he looked keenly into Kilbuck's face. 

"Chief, " he said nonchalantly, as he drew his pipe from the pocket ofhis mackinaw, "you and me's grazed conside'able on the same range. Weain't never got in each other's way. . . . There's some things aboutyou I ain't no nature for a-tall--but you been purty square withme. . . . Likewise I'm not goin' round tellin' all I know about you. Everybody to his own cemetery, I say. " The old man took his pipe fromhis mouth and faced the trader again. "But before I go a-rampin' offon this vacation o' mine, I want to say this, Chief: I'm not knowin'nothin' but hearsay about this Island o' Kon Klayu--but--yars ago Ilost out in the matter o' family and I'm thinkin' a heap o' thisBoreland outfit now. I'm trustin' to you, Chief, not to ring in nocold deck on 'em--or me. I'm figgerin' on seein' you at the Island o'Kon Klayu in about six weeks with the balance o' the grub. "

"You needn't be so all-fired serious about it, Kayak. I'll take careof the grub all right. You say yourself that I've always played fairwith you. "

"Yas, Chief, " drawled the old man, "but they ain't never been no womenin the game before. Women and dogs is hell for startin' trouble. Iain't blind, Chief. I can still see offen the end o' my nose. "

The trader laughed abruptly. 

"Well, old timer, you seem to be seeing off the wrong side this time. Don't you worry, Kayak. I'll be along and get you about the middle ofOctober. Your revenue cutter friends will be gone by that time. "

Kayak Bill was silent for a moment. Then with seeming irrelevance hesaid slowly:

"One time . . . A long spell back . . . I knew a woman . . . And aman. He cheated her, and--wall, I shot him dead . . . "

"Hey, there, Kayak!" came Boreland's shout from the whale-boat. "Comelend a hand here a minute, will you?"

Kayak Bill waited a moment. Then shaking the ashes from his pipe herestored it to his pocket and plodded down to the boat. 

Farther along the beach a little group of Thlinget women had gatheredabout Ellen and Jean to bid them good-bye. Senott, self-appointedspokeswoman for her shyer sisters, was shoving forward a plump, good-natured looking squaw, who handed Jean a pair of hair-sealmoccasins and a small Indian basket. 

"She potlatch you, " explained Senott, supplementing herwords with eloquent eyes and hands. "She like you, Girl-Who-Make-Singing-Birds-In-Little-Brown-Box. She Add-'m-up Sam'ooman. She go Kon Klayu long time ago. She sorry you go. No riveron dat island. No salmon, no tree, no mans. Only b-i-g wind! B-I-Gsea! She sorry you go. " The plump widow stood by shaking her head andmaking soft clucking sounds in her throat. 

Leaving Jean to thank their Indian friends Ellen slipped through thecircle. Her conventional training evidently asserted itself, for sheturned now and went to say a few words of good-bye to their host. 

She looked singularly small and attractive as she stood before him, herblue eyes raised to his face, the sea-wind blowing her hair across thepink of her cheeks. The trader stepped down from his log to greet her. 

"I wondered if you would say good-bye to me without the presence ofyour whole family, " he said softly, bending his head. Many a squaw inKatleean, after incurring his displeasure, had seen the same expressionin his eyes just before he struck her in the face with the flat of hishand. "One might almost think you are afraid of me. But . . . Thoughyou will not stay at Katleean, I'll always have something to remind meof you. " He slipped a hand into the pocket of his flannel shirt andthe sheen of Ellen's stolen lock of hair caught the light for a momentbefore he buttoned the flap over it again. 

Ellen, with a few stammered words, was backing away from him, her wide, fearful gaze fixed on his face, when he reached out, and as if merelyto shake her hand in farewell, laid his iron fingers over hers in agrasp that made her wince. 

"Just a moment, my frigid little Lucretia. " He spoke hurriedly: "I'mletting you go now because the time is coming when you'll want me. When you get aboard the schooner you'll find I have presented your sonwith a pigeon. Take good care of it. It was hatched here--and it'syour only means of communicating with the mainland. And listen--" heleaned down almost whispering the words--"When I want a squaw, I gether. When I want a white woman, I get her. Remember the pigeon. You'll want me. The pigeon, loose, comes back. I shall understand!"He laughed, as if sharing with her the humor of some vile joke. 

Ellen shrank back, her face flushing with outraged helplessness andshame. She wrenched her hand free. 

"All aboard! All aboard for Kon Klayu!" The cheery voice of herhusband rang out. She turned from the White Chief and ran. 

The natives came forward in a crowd. Jean free-stepping, wind-ruffled, met her halfway, and seizing her hand, the two hurried down to thewhale-boat. Friendly native hands shoved the boat off amid shouts ofgood will and good-bye. 

The rattle of the anchor-chain sounded as they boarded the _Hoonah_ andmade the tow-line of the whale-boat fast to the stern. The sails werehoisted and a moment later the little craft listed slightly as shecaught the breeze. The entire population of Katleean waving farewellfollowed along the beach past the Indian Village and down to the Point. 

"Good-bye! Good luck!" shouted the few white men on the shore. 

"_Tay-a-wah-cu-sha_! _Tay-a-wah-cu-sha_!" echoed the plaintive Indianvoices. 

From the top of the cabin the Borelands waved back as the _Hoonah_rounded the wooded point that shut out even the smoke from thetrading-post. 

Sea-gulls white as the bellying sails, tilted against the wind in thesunshine. A wedge of wild geese honked high on their way to southernlands. Countless sea-parrots squattered away from the schooner's path, dragging their fat, black bodies in splashing clumsiness across thewater. The wind freshened and the rigging strained and creaked as the_Hoonah_ swung to the long, wrinkled swells of the open sea. Drivenahead by the breeze she dipped and splashed sending showers of whitenedwater away from her prow and leaving a wake of foam-laces behind herlike a veil. 

Already the adventurers had left behind the creatures of their kind, for Silvertip at the wheel was headed out into the lonely NorthPacific, laying his course for the Island of Kon Klayu. 

PART II

CHAPTER XI

THE ISLAND OF THE RUBY SANDS

Next morning the schooner was rolling easily on a long swell. Throughthe open hatchway the sun streamed down into the hold where Harlan lay, and as he awoke, the appetizing fragrance of boiling coffee drifted into him from the cabin in the stern. Above the calls and the sound offeet on deck came a thin wild chorus which he had learned to associatewith the island nesting grounds of thousands of sea-birds. 

Hastily slipping into his clothes he climbed to the deck and lookedabout him. The _Hoonah_ was riding at anchor--ninety miles out at sea!

The morning air of sea-swept spaces filled his lungs with freshness. On three sides the sun-silvered green of the ocean fairly sang to theeye as it rolled away to meet the far blue of the horizon. Half a mileoff the starboard bow, edged by lines of breaking surf, sand-dunestopped with green merged gradually southward, into strange jade-greenhills, low and soft as brushed velvet in the distance. To the Norththe dunes tapered to a long, narrow shoal over which, as far as the eyecould reach, swells of clearest emerald broke into a splendor of flyingspray. 

Above this sand-spit thousands of gulls flashed, skirling andscreeching in the sunlight, their weird, thin calls mingling with thediapason of the surf that boomed against the beach and the hundredreefs of Kon Klayu. Overhead a constant stream of gulls andsea-parrots plied between their fishing grounds and the south end ofthe island where they had their young. 

"By Jove, it's a regular little island paradise?" Harlan called toKayak Bill. "How comes it that everyone is afraid of such an invitinglooking spot?"

Kayak, who was picking his way forward to where Boreland was alreadybusy with the outfit, paused and leaned a moment against the main-mast. His eyes with one slow glance took in land and sea. 

"Wall, son, I reckon she's somethin' like a pussy-cat. She's a-smilin'and a-purrin' in the sun today, but I'm thinkin' when it blows up asou'easter, with nothin' in God's world a-tween here and Honolulu tostop the sweep o' it, she shows every one o' her reefs like a catbarrin' her claws. "

Kayak Bill looked about him once more before striking a match to lighthis pipe. Then drawling something about the "ox-wee-nee-chal" gales, he passed on to the bow of the schooner, leaving Harlan smiling. 

Silvertip and his mate were kneeling in the stern, both busy with thepully-blocks that held the steering cable of the _Hoonah_. Their lowtones did not carry beyond a few feet. Silvertip slanted uneasyglances in the direction of the foaming shoals that ran far out intothe sea. His helper, evidently disagreeing with him on some pointshook his head. Harlan caught something about fog and getting off thecourse in the night. 

At last the man burst out:

"By yingo, I tank we are on wrong side of----"

"Shut up, you tarn squarehead, " snapped Silvertip, with a glance inHarlan's direction. 

The man made a gesture as if he washed his hands of the whole affair, then raised his head to look about him. A dark streak far toward thesouthern horizon indicated a breeze from that direction. 

"I guess we haf a beam wind home, " he announced. 

"Yas, tank God, " assented Silvertip, with a last look at the ruddercable. "Ant as kwicker ve leaf dis de'th trap, as better for me. Sheblow up gale har in turty minutes. Ven Ay vas cook on _SoofieSuderlant_----"

"Breakfast is ready, men!" interrupted Ellen's clear voice from thecabin hatchway. 

The Swedes came to their feet and after a moment of whisperedconversation, joined the others in the cabin. Half an hour later, whenBoreland and Silvertip came on deck again, the breeze had freshenedslightly and the sailor looked about him in a restless and worriedmanner, his glance finally lingering on the sand-spit. 

"Borelant, Ay tank ve lant you har right avay kwick. Ay tank she blowby an' by like hal. "

Shane, glancing at the clear sky and the sun-kissed waves, laughed. 

"Nonsense, Silver! The island's got you buffaloed, just as it has allthe sailors in this section. . . . But it's up to you. I'm ready togo ashore any time you say. The sooner you land me and show me ourcabin, the better I'll like it. "

The whale-boat at the stern of the schooner was drawn alongside, andanother which had been carried on the forward deck was lowered. 

The first one loaded, Kayak Bill and the two Swedes climbed down intoit and shoved off from the side. Boreland and Harlan, loading thesecond one, stopped in their work to watch them. 

Tossing up and down on the long, green swells, the moving boat drewnearer and nearer to the foaming lines of surf. Presently they were inthe welter of white. Once when the little craft went completely out ofsight behind a monster swell, Loll, watching from the cabin top, shouted in alarm, but yelled again in delight as it rose high on thesame billow. 

Silvertip and his mate bent to the long oars. In the stern Kayak Bill, hatless and wind-blown, steered wisely over the rollers whichthreatened to break on them any moment. 

In profane admiration Boreland watched. "It's the ninth wave, " heshouted presently. "Kayak'll take her in on that one. . . . Bythunder!" he broke out as the boat rushed toward the shore in a smotherof foam, and landed well up on the beach, "if that old cuss could ropea steer as well as he can land a boat in a surf, I wonder that theyever let him out of Texas!"

The work of landing the outfit went steadily on and with each trip tothe beach Silvertip urged more haste. Tides, currents, quick-risingfogs and gales, and the extreme danger of the anchorage--these were theburden of his conversation. Since he was the only one in the party whohad been on Kon Klayu before they were obliged to accept his reasonswithout argument. 

Despite haste, however, it was late afternoon when the last boat-loadwent ashore. Turning from his contemplation of it, Gregg Harlan lookeddown ruefully at the water-blisters that decorated the palms of hisslim hands. He was spending the most arduous day of his life. He wastired. Every muscle in his body ached from the heavy work of handlingthe outfit and in his mind was a weariness slightly tinged withbitterness. 

It was not until he saw Ellen and Jean in the departing whale-boat thathe realized how much he had counted on the few hours of theircompanionship aboard the _Hoonah_. With Loll he was on friendly, almost brotherly terms, because of his sincere appreciation of Kobukand the boy's new pigeon. But as for anything else--he smiled now alittle bitterly as he recalled Ellen's polite but wary treatment ofhim, and the seemingly casual way in which she managed to prevent anyinterchange of thought between himself and her young sister. Hefancied Jean felt this also and resented it, for several times duringthe day, across the confusion of the deck, her eyes had sought his andin the meeting there was a warming sense of intimacy. 

But she was gone now. He would never see her again. He had handeddown her violin as she reached up from the tossing whale-boat toreceive it. He remembered her firm, boyish hand-clasp as she saidgood-bye to him. Was there regret in her eyes at the separation, orhad he imagined it?

Gregg leaned wearily against the cabin looking toward the shore. Everything seemed to have gone wrong for him today. He had intendedgoing in with the last load for an hour's stay on the Island, butSilvertip, fearing that the wind might grow stronger, had insisted onhis remaining behind to watch the schooner. 

Through the glasses he could see Loll and Kobuk racing up and down thebeach now. Jean and her sister sat, somewhat forlornly, he thought, onpart of the outfit piled up on the sand. The men had gathered aboutthe whale-boat which was to be left on the Island, and were drawing itup higher on the shingle. 

It would be an hour or more before the Swedes returned to the _Hoonah_. Gregg looked out across the rolling, endless ocean. Although the sunwas yet shining brightly there was a feeling of evening coming on. Thecries of the gulls seemed to have taken on a tone of infinite sadness. All at once, for some inexplicable reason, he was overwhelmed by asense of the futility of life--of living. No quest seemed worthpursuing. No dream worth dreaming. He had often felt this way duringthe past three months, and when he did--he drank. He longed, withsudden intensity, for a bottle of Kayak's clear, white brew. Alcoholwas the magic brush that transformed the monotone of life into shadesof wondrous hue. 

His dejection was deepened by the fact that ever since leaving Katleeanhe had been trying vainly to recall that thing he should remember. While he strained and sweated over the loading of the outfit, his mindhad been busy seeking, searching, trying to pierce the curtain ofoblivion that separated him from that subliminal self who knew thething he wanted. He felt as though he were being tantalized. It wasalmost the same feeling he remembered having in boyish dreams that cameduring examination time, when the answers to dream questions flashed inhis mind for a moment then diabolically faded before he got them downon paper. 

After a while his unseeing eyes left the water. He gingerly felt theblisters on his hands and shook his head with a half-contemptuous, half-humorous smile at himself. Then restlessly he began to pace thedeck. If only he had something stinging--something stimulating todrink! But the White Chief had seen to it that there was nothingintoxicating aboard the _Hoonah_. It would be eighteen hours at leastbefore he could hope to be in Katleean where Kayak Bill had left agenerous supply of hootch stowed away in the top bunk of his cabin. Inthe top bunk----

He stopped short. From some remote corner of his brain there had cometo him one of those inexplicable flashes of memory that revealed, unbidden, the thing he had struggled so hard to remember! In a momenthe was back in Silvertip's top bunk the night of the Potlatch dance. The voice of the White Chief came back arguing, commanding, threatening. The whine of Silvertip protested, and finally assented. As a realization of what this conversation portended dawned on Gregg, his blistered hands clenched. Curs! Cowards! to lend themselves tosuch a work of deception! . . . The aroused young man tossed back hiswind-ruffled hair and squared his shoulders. He must reach Borelandimmediately; must tell him what he knew before the Swedes left thebeach of Kon Klayu. 

He sprang to the starboard side of the schooner and trained the glasseson the shore. The men were gathered about the whale-boat talking. Hecould see Silvertip's hand emphasizing some statement as he pointed tothe hills. Gregg knew that once the Swede left the beach, he wouldnever return to it. He had landed his party and his work was done. 

Desperately Harlan longed for some kind of craft in which he mightreach the shore before the sailors left it. There was none. For amoment he considered waiting until they came aboard. But could he, single handed, force them to return for the Borelands? . . . No, theoutcome of such a course was too uncertain. Something must be done atonce. 

There was only one other way in which he could get word to theadventurers. His eye measured the heaving, foam-streaked distancebetween him and the beach. Could he make it? A year ago in theStates, before drink had gotten such a hold on him, that half milewould have meant nothing to him--but now . . . Temperature, unknowncurrents, undertows must be reckoned with here. Again, shaking himwith its intensity, returned the intolerable craving for a drink. 

His eyes once more swept the long line of breakers. If he would warnthe Borelands he must do it at once! He must make that half milebefore Silvertip left the beach. . . . He would do it!

Even as he decided he had torn open the front of his shirt. Swiftly hestripped to his underwear and the next instant had dived over the sideof the schooner. 

He came sputtering to the surface. Contrary to expectations the waterwas much warmer than that at Katleean. With a feeling of relief hestruck out for the beach. 

He had not gone thirty yards when he became aware that a strong currentwas carrying him toward the south end of the Island. Desperately heput every ounce of his strength into his shoreward strokes. Thebuffeting of the running chop sea began to tire him. He was becomingwinded. He was losing his sense of direction. After ten minutes herealized, with alarm, that he could never make a landing, nearBoreland's outfit. . . . Five minutes more and he knew he would belucky if he made any landing at all. . . . The current was sweepinghim on toward the cliffs at the south end of Kon Klayu where blackreefs bared their fangs in a welter of foam. Even in the smother ofthe chop he was aware of the increased roaring of the breakers. 

He made one mighty, but ineffectual effort to reach the shore, thenwith a feeling of baffled despair he turned his back on the breakingsurf and began to fight his way, inch by inch, back to the safety ofthe _Hoonah_. 

CHAPTER XII

THE LANDING

On the beach the last sack and box had been carried up to a placeselected by Silvertip as being above the high-tide line. 

"Well, old man, I think we'll take a stroll around and see where thatcabin is located, " said Boreland cheerfully. "It can't be far from theanchorage here. "

"No, no. Youst a little vay. Youst a little vay, " hurriedly answeredSilvertip as he waved an indefinite hand across the dunes. "You'llfind it so easy you don't need me. Ay tank she makes a big vind in thesout'vest, so Ay go before a heavy sea coomes. "

They talked about the island anchorage for a few minutes. Borelandinsisted that the breeze would die down at sunset as is often the caseduring good weather, but Silvertip persisted in his determination toget away from the Island at once. 

Finally Shane turned to Kayak Bill with a somewhat contemptuous laugh. 

"What do you say, Kayak? This fellow seems scared to death to stayhere any longer. I reckon we can get along without him now, don't you?"

Kayak Bill spat meditatively at a knot of brown kelp. 

"Wall, we _mout_ be a-makin' a false play, but--durn the critteranyway, Shane! He ain't got no more backbone than a wet string! He'sbeen in a hell of a stew ever since we got here about this storma-brewing and it's beginnin' to roil me just havin' him pesticatearound. Let him go. "

During the conversation Silvertip's pale eyes had been shifting backand forth between Boreland and Kayak. If he resented Kayak'sdisparaging remarks he made no sign. When the old man finished hebegan moving swiftly toward the whale-boat where his mate was adjustingthe oar-locks. 

Five minutes after a last hurried direction relating to the location ofthe house, he and his partner were making their way out over thebreakers to the _Hoonah_. Shane and Kayak started out at once to lookfor the cabin in which they intended to sleep that night. As they leftthey called cheerily to the women standing on the beach, but Ellenhardly heard them. 

As the distance between the shore and the moving whale-boat lengthenedshe felt a growing depression, a sinking of the heart. She was filledwith a vast loneliness. All about her and above her was illimitabledistance--ocean spaces green and rolling; sky spaces far and wide andblue; spaces through which the winds of the world swept unhindered;spaces filled eternally with the sound of the sea. She was awed andsilenced by the immensity, the impersonality of it all. 

Jean, too, was silent and meditative. Ellen wondered if she werethinking of young Harlan. That problem at least was solved, shethought with relief. The girl came close and placed an arm aboutEllen's waist as if for the comfort her physical presence might bring. 

Together they looked on while the _Hoonah_ got under weigh. Flyingbefore the wind it grew smaller and smaller in the distance. The awein Ellen's heart gradually gave place to an acute homesickness for thecomfort of the little craft that would be her home no more. Timepassed, and as she watched the topmast sail going down on the horizonshe realized, as never before, that the fate of herself and her familywas dependent solely on the White Chief of Katleean. His word was law, his power absolute. She was aghast at her blindness in permitting theshaping of such a situation. Blaming herself, she went over the eventsof the last two weeks step by step, perceiving too late what she wouldhave done, what she should have said to dissuade her husband from thislast mad venture. 

She turned her eyes from the sea at last, resolving to shake off herdepression. She must prepare to meet the future. Jean had left hersome time before and was busy tucking her violin away more securely inits wrapping of silk. Lollie kneeling before the cage in which hispigeon fluttered experimentally was trying to force bunches of wildpeas through the bars. Ellen went close to the cage and looked down atthe bird. 

There was something sinister in the gleam of the bright, beady eye itturned up at her. The words of the White Chief came back to her. "You'll want me. . . . The pigeon loose, comes back. _I willunderstand_. " . . . "You'll want me. " What had he meant by that? Thepigeon--She looked down at it again thoughtfully. That afternoon, inlowering the cage from the deck of the _Hoonah_ into the whale-boat, the fastening had slipped and it had fallen into the sea, butSilvertip, by a quick movement, had grasped it before it sank. Suddenly Ellen found herself beset by two conflicting emotions--onemoment she wished it had gone down into the depths--the next she feltthat she must let nothing happen to this last, this only connectinglink with the mainland. 

She was brought back to her surroundings by Jean's call, as the younggirl hailed Shane and Kayak Bill, who were coming toward them throughthe tall rice-grass. The faces of both men wore looks of unusualseriousness and there was no answer to Jean's greeting until theystopped beside the piled-up outfit. 

"Oh, Shane, you didn't find the cabin?" Even as she asked the questionEllen knew the answer. 

"No, dear. It doesn't seem to be at this end of the Island at all. But--" noting the dismayed faces of those about him--"we needn't worryabout it. We'll put up the tents here for the night and make an earlystart in the morning. "

Loll had left his pigeon, and was listening, wide-eyed and serious. 

"But what if there is no cabin, dad?" With child-like directness hevoiced the question that was uppermost in the minds of every othermember of the party on the tree-less Island of Kon Klayu. In themomentary silence that followed a gust of wind stirred the rice-grassinto questioning sound as the coarse blades swayed together. 

"Oh, I know!" the boy answered himself enthusiastically, "we'll find acave, of course, and live in it like Robinson Crusoe. "

"Right-o, boy!" Boreland assented with a cheerfulness that did notescape being forced. "But just now we'll get busy making camp for thenight. "

Two tents were pitched in the rice-grass at the edge of the beach. Ona foundation of stones was set the small rectangular sheet-iron stovethat every gold-trail in Alaska knows. Within the hour the shiny newpipe was carrying a gay plume of smoke, and with the cheery cracklingof the flames, the spirits of everyone rose; for the adventurer maywander where he will, but when he builds a fire--whether it be ofcoconut husks on the rim of a South Sea atoll, or of drift-wood on thebeach of a northern sea, there comes a sense of home and comfort. 

Boreland, unpacking what he called the "grub-box, " volunteered to getsupper for the hungry band while they went in search of more driftwoodfor the fire. Leaving him busy with the frying-pan they headednorthward toward the long sand-spit that pointed like an accusingfinger in the direction of the mainland ninety miles away. Above thehigh-tide line the sand dunes were as powdery blue with lupine as theApril fields of California, and Loll's whooping investigation revealedpatches of wild strawberries larger than those found at Katleean, whereacres of them grow on the low sand hills along the sea. 

Jean and Lollie lay flat on their stomachs filling their mouths andgrass-lined hats. The bouquet of sun-warmed strawberries and theperfume of flowering lupine were wafted across the dunes inintermittent gusts of fragrance. Ellen almost forgot her anxiety asshe picked the red-toned fruit and listened to the drawling voice ofKayak Bill describing a cordial he had once made from the berries--aliqueur so subtle in its effects, so delicious and so warming that ithad melted even the heart of a revenue officer sent up from Sitkaespecially to investigate him. 

Later when they returned to the tents with lupine-laden arms and hatsfull of berries, there was in the air the good camp smell offrying-bacon, warmed-over brown beans and bubbling coffee. Boreland, apparently in the best of spirits, was setting out the dishes on aclean piece of canvas spread on the sand. 

"Get a move on, gang!" he called. "Come and get it! My stomach'sfairly cleaving to my backbone!"

As the adventurers ate, the sun, going down on the other side of theisland, tinted the sky with shades of wild rose and forget-me-not. Acluster of tiny golden clouds floated high in the blue. As thetrembling pearl of twilight came on, an occasional belated gull flewoverhead with a single, gently-sad question. The wind died away andthe song of the surf mellowed to a croon. 

After the dishes were done Ellen and Jean put Lollie to bed in theblankets spread in the larger tent while Boreland and Kayak Bill, smoking and discussing the possibilities of the sands of Kon Klayu, squatted about the drift-wood fire. Presently Jean left her sister andstepped out into the gloaming. She turned toward the south and walkedalong the edge of the sea-drift. The smooth hard beach was a lure toher feet. 

She lifted her chin, breathing deeply and swinging her arms free as shewalked. The air was faintly cool with the smell of the sea and with itmingled the multi-scented breath of northern Indian summer: lupine, sundried sand, beach grass and celery bloom. Soft and dim andstrangely lovely dreamed this Island of the ruby sands. From a shadowygrove of alders inland came the three plaintive notes of a sleepygolden-crown sparrow voicing the beauty, the mystery, the gentleness ofthe North. Enchantment broods in the twilight of Alaskan nights. Jeanhad felt it many times during the summer, and loved it--the vague, wildsense of romance in its dusks. Tonight the thrill and promise of lifeseemed more poignantly sweet than ever before. She longed suddenly forsome one to share this hour with her. . . . 

Reluctantly, at last she turned from the dim beckoning distance, andretraced her steps. 

As she neared camp, Kobuk, yawning, rose from his post by Ellen's tent, to greet her. Boreland and Kayak Bill had gone to bed in the smallertent, and about the greying embers of their bonfire, rubber bootsstood, like grotesque plants, each one drying upside down over a stakedriven into the sand. 

Jean undressed and slipped between the blankets beside hersister. . . . The clean, fresh smell of trampled rice-grass driftedabout her pillow. . . . As the tide came in the murmur of surf on thedistant shoals was soothing as a cradle song, and the girl, with atired sigh, adjusted her body to the unyielding, sandy bed, and drowsedoff into slumber, unaware of the peril that was even then creepingnearer and nearer to the sleepers on the beach of Kon Klayu. 

CHAPTER XIII

THE CABIN

It was long past midnight when Jean was startled into wakefulness. Kobuk was barking with the queer, short woofs of the huskie, andoutside the tent Ellen's voice fraught with fear and anxiety, wascalling:

"Shane! O, Shane! Wake up! Quick!"

There was a stealthy sound as of lapping water close at hand; thenBoreland's shout:

"For God's sake, Kayak, get up!"

Jean, now fully awake, ran out into the grey that precedes the dawn. There was not a breath of wind, and the sea, glassy and as grey as thesky above, was smoother than she ever saw it afterward on Kon Klayu. There was something sinister in the gently heaving stillness of thevast body of water, for not ten feet from the flap of the tent tinyripples of the incoming tide were swallowing at the dry sand withsibilant softness. One end of the pile of provisions just below thetent was already a foot deep in the advancing flood. 

There was no thought of dressing. The race with the sea began at once. No one knew when the tide would be full, but each realized that shouldthe provisions be ruined or swept away by the water, slow starvationwould terminate the quest for the gold of Kon Klayu. Every momentcounted. Every hand must help. 

Grim-faced and silent, Boreland and Kayak Bill drew on their tremendousreserve power, and during the next few hours performed almostsuper-human feats of strength and endurance in transferring theprovisions to safety. Ellen and Jean, regardless of unbound hair andthin night-robes, dashed out time after time into the ever rising tideto snatch up sacks of flour or boxes of canned goods, running with themfar above the beachline. In the face of the threatened catastrophethey were hardly aware of wet or cold or the weight of objects. Theywere small women, but in the peril of the moment they carriedback-breaking loads that would ordinarily have taxed the muscles of astrong man. Even Lollie, after the first look of sleepy wonder, becamealive to the situation when he saw his new pet, the pigeon, clutchingthe top of its cage above six inches of water. He rescued the bird andwhile the others were busy with the outfit, rolled up the blankets oneby one, and carried them beyond danger. Before he had finished, therelentless tide had crept up about the stove, the box where all thecooking utensils had been placed, and the four rubber boots drying ontheir stakes. The little fellow, looking absurdly babylike in hisnightgown, for all his eight years, splashed out to rescue thethreatened articles. Later, at a word from his father, he gatheredsome high-thrown drift-wood to make the fire, by that time sorelyneeded by all. 

The sun was coming up radiantly over the edge of the ocean when theyfinished their labors. Though nothing had been carried away, the tidehad risen two feet after discovery, and a third of the provisions waswet. Silvertip, in his haste to get away from the Island had landedthem on the tide lands. As they afterward learned but one or two tidesa month reached that particular level, but the Borelands hadencountered one of them. Had there been any sea on whatever that nighteverything would have been swept away, leaving them destitute, even ifthey had escaped with their lives. 

The sun and a good, hot breakfast warmed and cheered everybody. Besides there was little time to discuss their escape, since every wetdunnage bag and box had to be unpacked and the contents spread out inthe sun to dry. 

In making her round of the salvage, Jean came upon the box containingthe old magazines and books from the collection of Add-'em-up Sam. Ithad been wetted on one end. Taking out the top layer of books shepaused over the tattered volume of _Treasure Island_ to put into placea crumpled paper which protruded from beneath the cover. To herinterest she found it to be the crude drawing of Kon Klayu which shehad hastily thrust back that afternoon at Katleean when thequill-filled Kobuk had come cowering to her feet in the store. 

"Shane, " she called, waving it in front of her, "here's a little map ofKon Klayu. Maybe you might find out about the cabin from this. "

Boreland strode over to her and glanced at the paper. Then he took itin his own hands and scanned it more closely, looking up at thelandscape, the sea, and the shoals off which they were camped. 

Suddenly his hand fell to his side, and with a great oath he began topace up and down the sand. 

The others, dismayed, gathered about him. 

"Why, Shane! What is the matter?" cried Ellen. 

"Matter!" Anger flared in his brown eyes and his hand closed on themap as if it had been the throat of an enemy. "Ellen, Silvertip lied!That pale-eyed son of a sea-cook has landed us on the wrong side of theIsland. He was too much of a coward to take the _Hoonah_ around theshoals. Look at this, Kayak--" He smoothed out the paper so that hispartner could see the lines. "According to this, the cabin is all ofthree miles from here on the other side. "

Kayak Bill took the map in his hands and held it for a long momentbefore his near-sighted eyes. 

"By . . . Hell!" The words came slowly in a sort of whispered shout. 

Then as if unable to declare himself in the presence of the women, Kayak, with a suspicion of haste in his going, sauntered off to the farside of a sand-dune, where he sat down and in the manner of the trueAlaskan, drew heavily on his stock of profanity to express his opinionof all Swedes, Silvertip in particular, the country, and the blindProvidence that could create an island without a harbor. 

The situation forced upon the party was a serious one. It involvedtransferring the entire outfit three miles to the cabin--if there wasone--over the soft beach sand that made their only means oftransportation, a wheelbarrow, utterly useless. There were but a fewdays during the year when a small boat, such as the whale-boat, couldsafely circumnavigate the shoals at the north end and the reef-sownwaters about the Island. Since this means could not be relied upon, the two men were confronted with the necessity of packing on theirbacks to the cabin every pound of provisions; and with the equinoctialstorms close at hand, every day counted. 

Boreland bit his lip in the effort to control the anger that burnedwithin him as he realized that a month or six weeks must be spent intransferring the provisions. But there was no time to lose in cursingthe absent Silvertip; immediate action counted and he was never one tolet misfortune weigh long upon him. 

Noting the worried look on Ellen's face he crossed over to where shesat upon the opened box of books, and put his arms about her. 

"Never mind, little fellow. We'll come out all right. The darkesthour always comes before the dawn, " he said, laying his rough cheekagainst her hair. 

Despite her anxiety, a smile stirred the corner of Ellen's mouth as sheheard this familiar bit of sentimental philosophy. During the tenyears of her married life Shane had always been ready with these words, no matter what crushing calamity came upon them. She patted his handas she would have patted that of a child. 

Loll, with his fingers under Kobuk's collar, had been looking on, hislittle face unconsciously assuming the seriousness of those about him. He turned now to greet Kayak Bill, who, apparently calmed andrefreshed, was wading out of the rice-grass. The old man's sombrerowas cocked at a militant angle; his long raw-hide laces snaked alongbehind his boots, and clouds of tobacco smoke enveloped him. 

"Well, " he said gently, "I reckon there ain't no useless goodvocabulatin' about that varmint, Silvertip. I should a-known better'nto trust a man o' his moth-eaten morals, anyhow. "

Ellen stooped down to pick up the map which had fallen unheeded to thesand. For a moment she traced the beachline with her forefinger, reading the penciled names from the paper. "Sunset Point. SkeletonRib. . . . Well, at least we know where to look for the cabin, Shane. "She looked up decisively. "Let's find it before anything else happensto us. "

Ten minutes later the two men had disappeared behind the westernsand-dunes, and as if to assure them of his confidence in the future, Boreland's voice, raised: a quavering Irish melody floated back to thecamp where Ellen and Jean were spreading the blankets upon the sand. They were weary from their night's work. With Kobuk on guard theycurled up beside Lollie, and lulled by the far-away calls of the gullsand the ceaseless chant of the sea, were soon fast asleep. . . . 

The hoo-hooing of Boreland and Kayak Bill two hours later awakened thesleepers before the men reached camp. 

"Everything is lovely and the goose hangs high!" Boreland cheerilyanswered their questions. "We found the cabin all right and tonight weall sleep in our own little wickie!"

The pale-green combers that were breaking for miles out on the shoals, made it impossible to think of using the whale-boat. Therefore, immediately after lunch, the party started on the three-mile walk, eachone carrying a pack. Jean, with her violin and a scarlet blanketstrapped across her strong young shoulders, stopped in the trail againand again to laugh at her smaller sister, nearly obliterated under twofeather pillows. Loll, important as the head packer of a Governmentparty, carried a pot of cold beans in his hand, and encouraged Kobuk, whose pack-saddle was filled with necessary odds and ends for thenight's camp. The sheet-iron stove, with food and cooking utensilsinside, made a noisy, rattling pack on Boreland's back, leaving hishands free for his shot-gun which he carried for the ducks that wereflying south. Kayak Bill shouldered a roll of blankets with an easewhich many a younger man might have envied. He was balancing the broomacross his palm when his eye fell on the pigeon. He picked up the cagewith his free hand. 

"Beats all get-out what women will get a man into. "

A quizzical smile crinkled the corners of his eyes as he "hefted" hisburdens. "Here's an old sourdough like me hittin' the trail with abroom in one fist and--by he--hen, a dicky-bird in the other!"Occasionally it appeared to dawn on Kayak that his expletives were notexactly suited to the ears of women and children and he seemed to bedoing his best to modify them. 

Boreland, whistling, led the way. Despite the discouraging events ofthe night and morning it was a cheerful little party that started outfor the cabin. It is only in civilization that trouble and calamityeat into the heart. The wonder of the wilderness lies in that sense ofadventure just ahead, which brings forgetfulness of the hardships leftbehind. 

Shane and Kayak tramped down a trail across the sand-dunes, throughpatches of purple wild peas, and tall rice-grass whose silver-greenheads nodded heavily against the travelers as they passed. Wind, spiced with sea-weed and flowers blew across their faces. They cameout on the west side of Kon Klayu in a field of blossoming lupine thatsloped gently downward to the sands, and beyond, the sea dashed infoam-shot emerald against a ragged reef. 

Loll's flower-loving soul looked out of his eyes an instant; then witha shout he abandoned Kobuk and the bean-pot for the moment, andscattering the red-vested bumble-bees that were avidly working forhoney in the lupine flowers he began gathering a bouquet for his mother. 

The warm August sun coaxed tiny whiffs of vapor from the long greybeach that curved southward toward a distant bluff. Sky and water metfar out on the rim of the world. 

Scampering ahead along the wave-washed margin, Loll excited Kobuk tolaughter-provoking antics, as the dog, trying to play with him, swungalong with his ungainly pack. The boy made frequent dashes up to thehigh-tide line, where Indian celery lifted creamy, umbrella-likeblooms. From the beach-line the vivid green of the tundra, patternedwith daisies, stretched away to meet the alder trees growing thicklywhere the land gradually rose toward the center of the island. A smalllake here and there reflected the sky. 

It was in one of these lakes close to the beach that a flock ofmallards alighted, passing so near that the travelers could see theiridescent green of the drakes' heads catching the sun. Borelandslipped off his pack and creeping toward the lake, disappeared in theIndian celery. 

There was a moment of breathless waiting; a loud report: and asquattering and whirring as the flock flew away toward the hill. ThenBoreland, wet to the knees but grinning, appeared holding aloft threebirds. . . . 

The tide had been coming in for some time, assaulting the shore withever nearing combers. As the party neared the bluff round which theymust pass, the wash of extra large breakers licked the base and in thewake of each receding wave the wet sand mirrored the steep, rocky wallabove it. At such times it was necessary to wait until a wave had runout before they could hurry to a place of safety farther on. 

"I ain't no nature for this place a-tall, " said Kayak Bill, when theyhad safely dashed over the two hundred feet of this sort of going. "There'd be hell a-poppin' if a fella'd get caught there in a hightide. "

"The cabin lies just beyond, " Boreland announced. 

The bluff sloped down to a tall bank topped with green, having a beachbelow it. 

Following the sands for a short distance, they turned into what hadonce been a trail. The party halted looking upward to the place thatwas to be their home. 

A mere thread of a footpath, almost blotted out by tall grasses, ledgently up the slope for sixty yards to where, above a natural hedge ofcelery blooms, a little cabin of weather-beaten drift-logs cuddled atthe foot of a steep, green hill. A porch jutted out in front, spindling uprights supporting the slanting roof. To the right, fartherdown and half hidden in the grass, lay the remains of a board shackwhich had fallen in. There was a sound of trickling water in somehidden place. The sun fell warmly in this sheltered nook, bringing outthe scent of green things; and over all was that melancholy stillnesswhich envelopes human dwellings long deserted. 

The boom of breakers far out on the reefs was hushed to a soothing hum, and faintly, from the reedy little lake farther down on the southwardslope came the quacking of wild ducks. To the north and south and westlay the open sea, and as far as the eye could reach was no sight ofland. 

Jean broke her wide-eyed silence with a whisper:

"It's under a spell, Ellen, sure as you live. " . . . She continuedaloud: "Look at that quaint old latch on the door--made of a piece ofdrift-wood. And see the-- Oh! _Shane_!" Incredulity and fearshrilled in her voice--"Shane! Why, it's _moving_!" She grasped herbrother-in-law's arm as she pointed to the door of the cabin. 

It was true. The door was opening slowly, jerkily, in a way thathinted of fearsome, because unknown things. The next instant therestepped out of the opening a tall, shock-haired young man, naked, except for some tatters of an undershirt and a piece of old canvaswound about his hips after the fashion of a South Sea _pareu_. 

CHAPTER XIV

THE CASTAWAY

Kayak Bill was the first to find voice. 

"By the roarin' Jasus, "--his tones trembled with enormousastonishment--"if it ain't young Harlan!"

"My God, Gregg, has anything happened to the schooner?" shoutedBoreland, his long stride covering the distance to the porch. 

"Not a thing that I know of, Skipper. " The young man, with a wearygesture, brushed the hair back from his forehead upon which blood froma slight wound had dried. "But you see I left her before she startedback to Katleean. " In answer to the quick questioning in the fivepairs of eyes raised to his he stammered: "I--I--wanted tocome--ashore--for a few minutes, and--I--I--the current carried me ontothe reefs at the south end, and--I wandered in here a little while ago. "

Bruises and deep scratches marred the whiteness of his slim body, andbore evidence of a desperate struggle with the sea and rocks. He wasthe last person in the world that Ellen would have chosen to be thusromantically cast up on the shores of Kon Klayu with them, but woman ispotentially a mother and even her heart was touched by his plight. ForHarlan, trying--and failing--to appear nonchalant and at ease in hisembarrassing situation was boyishly appealing. 

"Why, Shane, then the poor fellow hasn't had a bite to eat sinceyesterday, " she exclaimed practically, while preparing to divestherself of her pack. "Everybody get busy here and we'll get him somelunch. Shane, you and Kayak see what you can spare in the way ofclothes, and in the meantime, Mr. Harlan--" her conventionally politetone as she turned to that young man caused Boreland and Kayak Bill toexchange an amused wink--"you may take this blanket that Jean haswrapped about her violin, and put it around you. "

A few minutes later Kayak Bill filled the coffee pot from a smallcrystal spring that trickled from the hillside into a sunken, moss-grown barrel, and placed it over a bonfire Boreland had made. Ellen left the old man to prepare lunch for their unexpected guest, andfollowed Jean and Lollie into the cabin that was to be their home. 

As she crossed the threshold the close, musty odor of decay smote herunpleasantly. The room had one tiny cobwebbed window through which thenorth light filtered. In the center a rough, home-made table, with oneleg slanting inward, supported some battered cooking utensils now greenwith a fungus-like mould and disagreeably reminiscent of the Indianhunters who had last camped in the place, no one knew how long ago. Inthe corner where a stove had once stood, was a pile of damp soot andashes, and the floor was littered with decaying woolen socks, oldpapers and rubber boots from which the tops had been cut to make ahouse-shoe known to Alaskan miners as "stags. " Here and there daylightshowed between the uncovered log walls, and great cobwebs wavered industy festoons from the chinking of brown peat. An infirm ladderleaned against one side of the room evidently for the purpose ofmounting to the loft indicated by the black opening that yawned in theceiling. 

Ellen had no inclination to follow her sister into the little room thatopened off the right. She was appalled at the amount of work to bedone before the musty squalor of the place could be banished and thecabin made really habitable. For a moment she even considered thepossibility of living in the tents until the White Chief brought thewinter provisions, by which time she hoped she might be able topersuade her husband to leave the Island. 

Boreland, coming into the room with the broom on his shoulder, interrupted her gloomy thoughts. 

"Pretty snug little place, eh, El?" he said cheerfully, looking abouthim and lunging for the nearest cobweb with his broom. "The roof isgood and when we get another window here facing the sea, and fix her upa bit, we'll be cozy as bears in a cave. "

He filled his pipe, still warm from the last smoke, and lighted it. Going to the opening leading to the next room he called: "Clear outnow, young ones. I'm going to start things going in here prettypronto!"

Through the open cabin doorway Ellen could see Harlan sitting by thebonfire in a borrowed undershirt and the scarlet blanket. He seemedrefreshed and strengthened by his lunch and was telling Kayak Bill ofhis failure to swim back to the _Hoonah_, and his subsequent landing onthe south end of the Island. Though all but exhausted by his battlewith the waves he had managed to dig himself into the dry, sun-warmedsand, and had slept heavily for hours. When he awoke the position ofthe sun told him that it must be morning. After washing the blood andsand from his scratches, he had set out to find the camp of theBorelands. 

Harlan did not give any reason for his apparently senselessdetermination to swim ashore at the last moment, nor was any expected. On the frontier it is actions, not the reasons for them that are ofmoment. At the risk of appearing a fool Harlan kept silent on thesubject. If he told now what he had heard of Kon Klayu that night hehad lain in the top bunk at Silvertip's, there would be nothing for theBorelands to work for, nothing to hope for, during the time that mustelapse before the _Hoonah_ returned with the winter stores. The truthnow would only arouse bitter thoughts of revenge in the heart ofBoreland, who must chafe inwardly at his helplessness. There was timeenough for the truth when the schooner returned to Kon Klayu. 

"Over there on the east side of the Island, almost directly opposite tothis point, I think, I found a sort of Eskimo hut made of whale ribsand peat and drift, " Harlan was saying as Ellen came out of the cabin. "It isn't half bad, and with a little work I can make it fit to livein. "

The young man saw Ellen and came to his feet. "I honestly don't knowhow to excuse myself for being here, Mrs. Boreland, "--there was a hintof wistfulness in the deep dark eyes he bent upon her--"but--I _am_here and dependent on your generosity until the schooner comes back. I'll try to be as little of a bother as I can. I was just tellingKayak about the hut I found on the other side of the Island. I'll livethere. "

Ellen's mind had already been busy with the problem of housing herunwelcome guest. She had not been blind to the interested andwelcoming look Jean had given the young man as she greeted him half anhour before. She was aware of the almost inevitable result ofpropinquity. She looked up now with relieved interest and despiteherself, with faintly quickening approval. By living on the other sideof the Island, Harlan would in part solve the problem. She could thensee to it that he saw little of Jean. If it were not for her sister, she might find it in her to like, though she could never approve of thegood-looking young ne'er-do-well. Through Kayak Bill she had come toknow part of the truth about the death of Naleenah, but like most goodwomen, she could not bring herself fully to exonerate one who had beenso compromised. Potentially, if not actually, Gregg Harlan was to hera squaw-man, and most certainly he was a drunkard. 

"Well, Lady, me and him's goin' down to the North end of the Island foranother load o' grub and camp gear, " drawled Kayak Bill as he finishedscouring out a burned place in the frying pan. "You can't tell a speckabout how long this here weather's goin' to last and we want to getunder cover soon as possible. Besides--" the old man's eyestwinkled--"Gregg here looks too durned lady-like in this la-de-dahoutfit. " He pointed to the scarlet blanket. "What he needs is a pairo' pants. Pants, I claim, has a powerful civilizin' and upliftin'influence on the mind o' man. Take the heathen now. They don't wearnone, and see what----"

Kayak's threatened monologue was cut short by Boreland, who, havingattacked the dirt and debris in the cabin appeared now and began topile some of it on the fire. 

After the old man and Harlan had gone, Boreland swept down the cobwebsand made the cabin ready for scrubbing. That sense of satisfaction andhappiness which comes to those in the process of home-making in thewilderness, found expression in his rollicking Irish melody. 

The legless Yukon stove was set up after the fashion of the country--anold packing box, found at the cabin, being filled with gravel and thestove put on top of it. A few minutes later there was a crackling fireof drift-wood and every pot and kettle brought from the camp thatmorning was full of heating water. 

The floor of smooth boards, was unbelievably dirty. The lack of soapat first caused Ellen to despair of ever getting it clean, but Loll, who had watched Senott at Katleean cleaning her house, solved theproblem by pouring sand on it while Boreland scrubbed with the broom. 

Two hours later the clean bare floor was drying rapidly from the heatof the stove before which Ellen stood stirring a savory pot of duckmulligan for an early supper. . . . 

It was late afternoon when Kayak and Harlan returned with their loads. As they turned in from the beach to the little grass-grown trail, Kayakstood a moment looking up at the silver smoke floating against thegreen hill. Jean, more starry-eyed than usual, was singing as shearranged the dishes on a canvas spread upon the floor of the porch, andat her direction Lollie was painstakingly placing some wild flowers ina tin can for a centerpiece. The two looked up to wave a welcome tothe packers as they approached. 

"By hell, " said Kayak with slow appreciation, "it beats all creationhow quick women folks can make a home out o' nothin'. " . . . 

After supper the men sat on the porch smoking and discussing ways oftransferring the provisions from the north end of the Island. 

"If we ever get a day calm enough so that we can use the whale-boat, "said Boreland, "it won't take long to get the whole business down here. But we can't depend on that. I don't think the sea will get smoothenough this fall for us to bring the boat around the North Shoals. We'd better skid it across to this side of the Island--it can't be overa quarter of a mile wide there--and pack the grub over too. When afavorable day comes we can load her up and it's only a few miles downhere. It's lucky for us, Gregg, " he added placing a hand on the youngman's shoulder, "that we have another strong back to depend on. " . . . 

As they talked evening closed in. From the alders on the hillside camethe plaintive night-song of the golden-crown--the three notes ofpoignant beauty and mystery that were linked indissolubly with thesummer twilights of Kon Klayu. Out over the reefs the sun had gonedown splendidly into the sea. Broad ribbons of clear jade streaked theprimrose of the sky. Beneath, bands of amethyst, amber and rose mergedslowly into a flame of crimson, and while the violet dusk crept overthe sea, the stars came out. Blowing across the bare brown reefs thenight wind brought the scent of kelp and the muffled boom of surf. 

The peace and promise of the sunset soothed all into silence for atime. Ellen and Jean and Lollie sitting close on the bottom step ofthe porch, watched in reverent wonder as the colors changed. At lastthe boy lifted his eyes to his mother's face. 

"God smiles, mother, " he said simply, resting his tired head againsther shoulder. 

Jean leaned across to her sister. 

"Ellen, " she said quietly, "I think I love best of all the evening-timeof things, don't you--the fall of the year; the end of the day. Iwonder--" a wistfulness crept into her voice--"I wonder . . . Ihope . . . No, I _know_ that when it comes, I'll find that the sunsettime of life is the most beautiful!"

As she finished speaking she turned instinctively to look at the oldman on the porch above her, the only one of them whose slowing feet hadturned into the Sundown Trail. Kayak's hand, loosely holding hiscooling pipe, rested on his knee. His sombrero backed his strong, bearded face, which had taken on the serenity of the evening. His deepeyes were calm with revery. As she gazed the girl's heart was floodedwith a pitying tenderness for him, for Kayak Bill who, because ofsomething buried deep in his past, faced the sunset of life--alone. 

She turned her face away--and met the warm young eyes of Gregg Harlanbent upon her. . . . Then suddenly she was glowingly happy because shewas still young. 

CHAPTER XV

THE GIANT BALLS OF STONE

It was not yet five o'clock the following morning when Loll, from hisblankets on the floor of the cabin living-room, raised his tousled headand looked cautiously about him. His big, grey eyes were alive witheagerness and expectation. The strangeness of his surroundingsthrilled him with possibilities. Through the window the sun-floodedworld called him to adventure. 

Again he glanced speculatively at the sleeping forms round him and theneased warily out of bed. 

With a pudgy finger on his lips and long steps of a stealthiness soexaggerated that his balance was threatened at every move, he tip-toedto the corner where his shoes lay, and without stopping for any furtheraddition to his toilet, slipped out the door in his nightgown. 

He avoided the blanket-cocooned figures of Kayak Bill and Harlan on theporch, and continued a short distance down the path to the choppingblock where he sat down to pull the shoes on his little bare feet. 

Kobuk, returning from some early morning adventure on the beach, espiedhim, and with a red-mouthed huskie smile, came bounding up the trail, wriggling an extravagant and clumsy welcome. With loud whispers hissedthrough fiercely protruding lips, Loll tried to shoo him away, but thedog only whirled about, thumping him with a joyously wagging tail andpoking a cold damp nose down the neck of his nightgown. 

After fastening the top button of his shoes the boy stood up and lookedabout him. The wonderful sunniness of the world thrilled him. Fromthe blue sky soaring gulls called to one another, and the sunlightpoured down on the silver-green ocean and the little lake to the south. Faint breaths of air stirred the scent of green things, and everywherewas that exhilarating freshness of late summer that has in it the hintof autumn frosts. 

The youngster waved his arms and danced from sheer joy in living, andwith Kobuk at his heels, ran down off the trail through the damp grasstoward the lake. 

About a hundred yards from the cabin, hidden in a clump of alderbushes, he came upon a low hut built of drift logs. Half the roof wasgone and pieces of decaying seal-hide and a ragged red shawl embeddedin the dirt floor hinted of the visits of long-ago Indian otter-hunters. 

Interested in his discovery, the little fellow was peering cautiouslyin, when, with a sudden bound, Kobuk dashed by him nearly knocking himover. There was a whirr of wings overhead, sounds of bird alarm, andhalf a dozen swallows circled wildly about the frantic Kobuk beforefinding a place of escape through the hole in the roof. 

"Gosh, Kobuk, I was pretty near scared, " admitted the youthfulexplorer, looking up at the rafters under which several nests madeclay-grey splotches. 

Swallowing hard a time or two he buttoned up the neck of his nightgown. Outside the hut again he slanted a discreet glance back in thedirection of the cabin to assure himself that everyone still slept, andthen with a whispered whoop of invitation to the dog, skipped downtoward the beach. 

The cabin stood well back on the bank off the center of a smallcrescent cove, flanked on the north by the bluff around which the partyhad come the day before. Toward the south the beach curved to what wasmarked "Sunset Point" on Add-'em-up's map. Loll tucked his nightgownup under his arm and headed for that unexplored territory, talking toKobuk as he skipped along. 

The tide was falling and screaming gulls rose and fell over the rocksfeeding on the shellfish among the seaweed. Far out on the water greatflocks of black sea-parrots floated, and overhead these stocky littlebirds flew in hundreds, their huge, crimson beaks thrust determinedlyout before them, their round, white-ringed eyes showing plainly, andtheir wings, seemingly too small for their pudgy bodies, beating theair in a hurried manner, as they attended strictly to the business offeeding their young. Unlike the lazy gulls they took no time to loiteralong the way. 

The boy, looking up at the busy black workers, little dreamed of thevital and spectacular part both he and they were to play later in thestruggle for existence on the Island of Kon Klayu. 

The weed-covered boulders of Sunset Point drew him, but though he feltstrongly the fascination of the ocean bed now becoming uncovered by thetide, for some indefinable childish reason he hesitated to go downamong the rocks in his nightgown. So, whistling with moisttunelessness, he rounded the Point, Kobuk trotting on ahead. 

Here the character of the beach changed, and the high-tide line, wherethe rice-grass began, was piled with a criss-cross confusion ofbleached drift-logs thrown up by the mighty surf of storms. Mounds ofold kelp lay drying in the sun, and the unforgettable odor of decayingsea-things mingled with the freshness of the morning. 

Absorbed in the delights of discovery, Lollie poked about in thetangled masses finding strange, beautiful shells and sea-flowersfragile and delicately colored as the heart of a rose. He gathered hisnightgown up into a pocket in front of him in which to carry home someof the damp and none too fresh treasures of the beach. 

Sea figs in tan and orange and vermilion made splashes of color amongthe wet piles of shiny brown kelp brought up by the last tide, andsmall dead starfish turned pale stomachs to the sun. Grotesque, bulging seaweeds stirred him to laughter, and after untangling one--ahead-like growth that seemed to grin sociably at him from a tail twentyfeet long, he tied the thin end about his waist. The bulb wriggledalong behind him on the sand, alternately piquing and repelling thecuriosity of the sniffing Kobuk. 

Another point ahead lured him on. Clouds of sand fleas rose inrustling hops as he ran along. Here and there monster jelly-fishglistened in the sun. With his mouth in a continual O of admirationand wonder, the little fellow squatted repeatedly to gaze at theexquisite geometrical designs in their crystal depths; but after one ortwo half-hearted attempts to pry them apart to see how they were madehe contented himself with adding one to his already overburdenednightgown. Even in the thrill of discovery he had an instinctiveantipathy against marring a beautiful thing. 

Kobuk, running on ahead, had found something which interested him. Hestood looking back, woofing impatiently as if urging the boy to hastenand see what it was. As Loll came nearer he shouted in astonishment, increasing his gait with difficulty because of the impeding pocket infront of him. What he saw was a head of some great sea monster, perhaps twelve feet long. The dark skin was streaked with dull red andpurple, and where the head had been severed from the body, the sea hadwhitened it to sand-encrusted tatters. The huge mouth lay open andtwisted, and from the lower jaw protruded two rounded tusks, nearly afoot long. 

There was a contemplative moment while Loll's eyes opened wide. 

"Golly, Kobuk--" reverent awe was in his tones--"I bet-cha that's thewhale that swallowed old Jonah!"

There was a singular fascination about the battered remnant, far gonein decay, but the stench from it finally proved so overpowering that, despite his intense desire to linger near his discovery, Loll wasobliged to move on. 

He turned to the upper beachline for further explorations. Across anarrow strip of tundra-like land lay the small lake visible from thecabin porch. On the edge of the rice-grass he stumbled against aboulder that was as remarkably round as if it had been shaped by humanhands. He stopped in delight at the great stone ball and tried to moveit with his one free hand. Farther on he saw more of the curiousspheres. Some were two feet and more in diameter. 

"Maybe--giants played ball with 'em once!" he whispered to himself, with a cautious glance about him. 

He headed for the tundra and was startled by coming suddenly upon theskeleton of a whale whitening in the sand where an extra high tide hadthrown the creature long ago. Purple wild peas and blue beachforget-me-nots blossomed between the monster ribs, and the hugevertebrae, scattered here and there, were half hidden by the grass. Itwas from this relic, no doubt, that the Point opposite derived itsname--Skeleton Rib. 

Afterward Louie's father utilized several of these vertebrae forstools, but seeing them for the first time, the little fellow lookeddown at them respectfully, hushed into silence by vague, sea-bornfeelings. Far down the beach to the southward rose the cliff's wherethousands of sea-birds swarmed in the sunshine. Their screaming, softened by the distance, came to his ears with an eerie wildness. Allat once he felt very small and alone among alien creatures. Kobuk hadturned back without him and was bounding out of sight around SkeletonRib. The giant balls of stone suddenly took on fearsome suggestionsfrom the realms of fairy tales. 

The dog had disappeared now. The plaint of a high-flying gull drifteddown to the boy. A breath of wind whispered in the grass about thewhitening bones. . . . Suddenly he was flooded with a very panic ofloneliness. Grasping the folds of the nightgown more tightly beforehim he set out as fast as his little bare legs would carry him towardshome, the trailing kelp attached to his waist bounding wildly alongbehind him. . . . 

It was thus that Ellen, white-faced with anxiety, met her returning sonas he rounded Sunset Point. She clasped him frantically to her toassure herself that he was indeed safe and sound, and then held him offat arm's length, surveying the havoc to his nightgown, and preparingfor the admonishing that was due. But Loll had already learned todivert many a mild scolding by the relation of some startlingdiscovery. He launched forth now on the subject of the whale's headand the stone balls that giants must have played with, givingembellishments so amazing that his eyes stood out in growingastonishment as he talked. 

Out-maneuvered, Ellen led him to breakfast where he took his placestill holding forth on the wonders of his adventures. Kayak Billregarded him with an appreciative eye. Finally he drawled:

"Son, you sure do vocabulate most as well as a sourdough!" [1] Hepaused to take a long, slow swoop of coffee and wipe his mouth with hisred bandana. "The whale's head that et Jonah ain't so bad--but themgiant hand balls o' stone sounds phoney. . . . You know there seems tobe somethin' about this durned country that just nache'ly makes whitemen--not lie exactly--but sort o' put trimmin's on the truth. . . . Irecollect a couple o' yars back when I'm hibernatin' one winter up onthe Kuskokwim River with a bunch o' white trappers and prospectors. "With his spoon, Kayak scraped the bottom of his empty coffee-cup to getevery unmelted grain of sugar that lay there. "The next summer, I'm ason-of-a-gun, if them Injines up there ain't callin' that place by anInjine name that means 'The Valley o' Lies'. . . . I've sort o' got itfiggered out like this: This doggoned Alasky land, bein' so big andmagnificent like, a man just feels plumb ashamed to tell of some littlemeachin' thing a-happenin' in it--he feels downright obliged to fixthings up so's they'll match the mountains and the rest o' it. "

And drawing his corn-cob from the pocket of his hair-seal waistcoat, Kayak Bill shuffled off into the cabin to light it from a splinterthrust into the round draft hole of the Yukon stove, while Boreland andHarlan made ready to leave for the provision camp at the North end. 

For five days after landing the weather continued clear, although thesea never became sufficiently smooth for a trip with the whale-boat. Each day the men of the party went down to the first camp to packprovisions across the Island to what they called the West Camp, theplace from which they expected to load them into the whale-boat andtake them by water to the cabin. When the entire outfit had beenpacked across, the whale-boat was also skidded over on small driftlogs. By this means they avoided the long shoals which ran so far outinto the sea. 

"Now for a few days of smooth water, " said Boreland, when the job wascompleted, "and we'll be able to take everything down to the cabin byboat. We must have this grub under cover before the autumn storms setin. The rougher the sea, the better chance for gold, soSilvertip--damn his cowardly hide--told me. Kilbuck said oldAdd-'em-up used to send his squaw out patrolling the beach after eachstorm, and she usually found patches of black or ruby sand whichcarried considerable gold. . . . It seems reasonable enough, Kayak, for it's the same with all placer diggings along the sea. "

The three men seated themselves on the upturned boat to eat theirlunch. Boreland, whose mind was ever dwelling on the time when heshould be free to begin his search for the gold of Kon Klayu, talkedon. Harlan listened in silence to the other's eager plans. 

"But of course it's the _source_ of the gold we want! Silvertip thinksit is thrown up out of the sea by the action of the waves. Kilbuckimagines it is washed down from the banks, although all the prospectingdone by the fox-farmers revealed nothing. But--gold is where you findit, and I mean to leave no stone unturned while I'm here. . . . Speaking of stones, " he went on after a moment's silence, "Loll wasright about his giant balls of stone. Have either of you noticed hereand there along the beach, especially toward the south, small, perfectly round boulders? By thunder, they look exactly like cannonballs!"

Harlan, though he had at first attended the others' speeches hadgradually become immersed in his own thoughts. Each day, while hismuscles ached and the desire for stinging liquor flamed like fire inhis veins, he had worked with Boreland and Kayak Bill at the North endof the Island packing provisions across on his back. Though he stillate his meals with the Borelands at the cabin, almost immediately aftersupper he took the mile and a half trail across the Island to the hut, which he had found on his landing. Intuitively, he knew EllenBoreland's opinion of him. He smiled sometimes at the grim humor ofthe situation: He, who had tried to get away from the society of womenfound himself now on the mercy and generosity of a woman who did notlike him. He was dependent on her, by Jove, for every stitch ofclothing on him, for even the soap that he used--for his verytoothbrush. Soon, he knew, she would be giving him provisions so thathe might cook his own meals on the other side of the Island. Shedidn't want him around her, or her sister. It piqued him to be feltunwanted--aroused in him a desire to show her----

His innate honesty compelled him to admit that Ellen knew him in nohero's light. Still he could not help a feeling of bitterness at therelieved look that came, unconsciously, to her face each evening whenhe turned, reluctantly, from the homelike group on the cabin porch, totake the lonely little zig-zag trail up the hillside. 

His mind went back now to a scene of the evening before. After supperjust as he was preparing to leave. Jean had taken her violin from itscase. 

"I'm going to play, tonight, Mr. Harlan. Are you too tired to stay awhile?" she asked, looking at him with friendly eyes. 

Too quickly Ellen had interrupted:

"No, no, Jean. Don't keep this poor, tired fellow from his bed. I'msure he wants to go to sleep as soon as possible. And here, Mr. Harlan, "--she advanced toward him thrusting into his arms a blanket anda pillow, --"I found this extra bedding for your bunk today. . . . There now, tuck it under your arm, like this. . . . Good-night. . . . Sleep well. . . . _Good-night_. " Her voice was kind as she smiled upinto his face, but there was no mistaking her meaning. With shame andresentment in his heart he had turned up the hillside trail. 

On the brow of the hill he had stopped and flung the bedding angrily onthe ground, himself upon it. Was he a criminal that he should bedebarred from an hour's pleasure in the society of the only other humanbeings on this Island? Suddenly he felt that he hated Ellen Boreland. He hated all women. He hated all the world. The longing for strongliquor swept him, shaking him like a leaf. He could feel his chinunder his soft young beard quiver. He despised himself for a weaklingand a fool. He tightened the clasped hold of his arms about his kneesand dropped his head upon them. The thought that had been tormentinghim since the first day he began transferring the provisions, came backnow with an added urge. At the West Camp were flour, sugar, cornmealand dried fruit. With those ingredients he could make himself thestuff that his system craved--make it as the Indians made it, with twokerosene cans and a long piece of hollow kelp. In his hut on the otherside of the Island he could, undetected, heat the fermented mash in acan, attach the piece of kelp to the top and immerse it in cold wateruntil the condensed steam came out at the other end in the form ofThlinget _hoochinoo_. 

As he huddled there on the brow of the hill he had cradled the thoughtin his mind, planning in detail each step of the distilling. Withprovisions so low it would be impossible to take enough from the cacheto make any quantity--but he might make sufficient to ease, just once, the intolerable thirst that possessed him. It might be six weeksbefore the _Hoonah_ returned--six weeks of torment and loneliness. 

Another thing had been troubling him of late. His thoughts had beenreturning to stories he had heard of Add-'em-up Sam who had died ofdelirium tremens at Katleean. Silvertip, when in liquor, was fond ofdetailing the last, violent days of the old bookkeeper. . . . Sometimes, Harlan fancied, he too was beginning to see those fearfulshadowy images that dance on the borderland of insanity. How elsecould he account for that spectre of the tundra which he saw, sometimes, as he went home in the dusk--that dark, almost imperceptiblefigure far off toward the south cliffs where the lone tree of Kon Klayustood on the brow of the hill? Was he too going the way of Add-'em-upSam?

As he sat there he had cursed himself for ever leaving the _Hoonah_ andrisking his life to help a woman whose kind, polite aloofness irritatedhis drink-shattered nerves as an open declaration of hostility couldnot have done--a woman to whom he was merely a foolish young man whohad chosen to get himself marooned, and whose presence forced her tocalculate more closely the alarmingly depleted store of provisions leftafter the wetting of the tide. 

Suddenly, in the midst of his bitter reverie, he raised his face fromhis clasped arms. Up from the cabin below floated the faint, pureharmony of violin strings. So exquisite, so lovely sounded the notesin the wide, wild loneliness of the evening, that Harlan sat for amoment with suspended breath. Gradually, under the spell of the music, he became aware of the beauty of the world about him. The after-sunsetsky was a vast expanse of tender rose and blue deepening into violet onthe long encircling horizon line. Below lay the wine-dark sea fringingwith pale foam the sands of Kon Klayu. The noise of breakers ondistant reefs was like the wind in the eucalyptus trees of hisCalifornia home. . . . A flood of homesickness dissolved theresentment in his heart. . . . Gradually the old fears and hauntingtroubles faded from his lean young face. The low, vibrant tones ofJean's violin brought him comfort. The soft, rippling notes breathedhim confidence, and the silvery chords lured him into the promises ofthe future. He felt equal to noble and heroic deeds--to fighting andconquering. From a sense of being outcast and alone, he felt a suddenwarming kinship with all the world. With his heart expanding he cameto his feet, the better to catch the harmony. 

The time and air had changed into something vaguely familiar. . . . With a glow of pleasure he recognized it, --the lament of the funeralcanoes at Katleean, but with something else added, something that madehim feel the mystery and the weirdness and the elemental call of theNorth. It was almost as if she played to him comforting him withpromises of this clean, new land of beginnings. 

Abruptly, he remembered, the music had broken off. There was amoment's silence. And then there had drifted up to him Jean'sinvariable good-night to the deepening twilight. Sweet and clear froma long-drawn singing bow it came--a commingling of love and peace andbeauty he had once heard a great contralto sing:

 "In the West Sable night lulls the day on her breast. Sweet, good-night! . . . "

He had longed to throw back his head and sing these words to Jean'smusic, but he had shaken himself. No. That was a song for a lover. . . 

"Son, are you plumb dead to the world?" Kayak Bill's words rousedHarlan from his dreaming. He sprang up and began stacking provisionsinside the tent. He realized as he worked, that today no temptingthought had come to him of secretly distilling hootch from stores hemight take from this camp. The enormity of such an action struck himfor the first time. This food meant life on Kon Klayu--and there waslittle of it. . . . 

A few hours later headed down the long stretch of beach toward thecabin, he squared his shoulders under the heavy pack he bore and joinedin with the voices of Kayak Bill and Boreland who, with lustyincongruity were singing the whaling song of the trading-post:

 "Up into the Polar seas Where ice is delivered free, And a man don't have to hustle Like a blooming honey-bee!"

Work was hard in this country of the last frontier, but men had moretime, more inclination to sing, he thought. 

As he swung along the hard sand, in his heart was a sense ofexpectancy--for what he did not know. 

[1] Old-time Alaskan. 

CHAPTER XVI

THE STORM

The following morning was sunless. The air was still and heavy withforeboding. Leaden-colored waters heaved under a gloomy sky and thoughthe sea appeared smooth to the eye the hollow roar of distant surfsounded louder than usual. There was a strong smell of kelp and saltbrine, and a new, wild note in the cries of the gulls. 

"I say, " Boreland called to Kayak Bill, who was tying back the flap ofthe tent in which he slept. "It looks as if there's a storm brewing. But I never saw the sea smoother. I think, if we're quick about it, wecan get a boat-load of grub down here before she breaks. What you say, Kayak?"

Kayak spread his legs and leaned back to take a long look at the sky, just as Harlan came down over the hill and joined them. 

"I'm yore man, Boreland, " he said at last. "But we'd better be spryabout it, for it'll be Davy Jones' locker for us if we get caught in agale off the reefs. "

A hasty breakfast over, Ellen joined the men and the four left for theWest Camp to select the most important things with which to load thewhale-boat. 

Arrived at their destination they worked swiftly, Ellen making herselection of necessities while the men skidded the boat down to thewater's edge. It was soon loaded. A small pile of lumber fromKatleean for making sluice-boxes and furniture was made into a raft tobe towed. 

"About three more trips with the boat, and we'll have everything downat the cabin, " said Ellen, as she tied the flap of the tent. She hadnoted that while he worked, Shane had glanced uneasily from time totime at the grey sky. It was rapidly taking on a purple tinge, thoughthe sea was still as oily-smooth as it had been early in the morning. 

When the last sack had been stowed away and the raft made fast to theboat, Ellen saw Harlan call her husband aside. In a low voice sheheard him make some suggestion which Boreland dismissed with a gesture. 

"Thanks, old man, " he said, "but this is a job for all three of us, "and he turned to join Ellen who was standing at the edge of the water. "We'll be home in time for supper, El, " he said, with forcedcheeriness. "Don't worry, now--mind!" And he patted her handreassuringly before he turned to the boat. 

As she watched the craft slip away from the shore she conquered a wildimpulse to reach out and drag it back again. Shane and Harlan shovedon their oars with long, slow strokes, as they faced the reefs that laybetween them and the open sea; Kayak Bill steered. Ellen watched themmove in and out between the protruding rocks. On the grey slope of thesullen swells that rose and fell unbroken about them the raft in towshone wetly yellow. From time to time she caught glimpses of streamingtangles of kelp which somehow suggested the floating hair of deadwomen. . . . 

The boat crept off-shore to get outside the most dangerous of thereefs, and once free, Boreland, small now in the distance, looked backto wave a hand at her. At last, having seen the craft swing and moveslowly southward on the home stretch round the Island, Ellen sighedwith relief, and turning away from the sea, started down the beachtoward the cabin. 

Across the dark pall of the sky in the southwest clouds were beginningto form in heaving sombre masses. A breeze, coming at first inscarcely perceptible breaths, freshened almost in a moment, until theglassy surface of the sea was wrinkled and streaked far out with black. It was impossible to see the whaleboat now because of the barrierreefs. Ellen's heart grew heavy with foreboding. The wind . . . Remembering the tales of quick-rising wind and sea, she prayed thatthese fitful puffs might not be the first breaths of a borning gale. 

She found Jean and Loll on the beach below the house. They had feltthe danger of the coming storm and were looking out anxiously for afirst glimpse of the boat. 

Only rearing waters and lowering sky bounded their vision. 

The wind increased. 

Silence grew upon them. 

The cloud banks in the southwest separated into weird-shaped masseswhich detached themselves and began to travel swift and low toward themacross the sky. Some menacing quality in this relentless, headlongrush increased Ellen's fears, and in growing alarm she watched the tinywhite-caps that were beginning to form on the waves. 

As they hurried down to the point off the bluff to command a wider viewof the waters, the wind whipped their skirts about them and tore attheir hair. 

Three grey gulls flew swiftly overhead with plaintive, long-drawn criesquite different from their usual raucous screams. In her anxiety Ellenremembered that these wild birds of Kon Klayu had as many moods as thesea, and were prophetic of them. Loll, holding tightly to his mother'shand, looked up at her with grave eyes. 

"Mother, " he said, "Senott told me one time that sea-gulls are thesouls of little dead Indian babies and they always cry for theirmothers before a storm. Hear them now?"

Immeasurably sad and longing the bird call struck through the sound ofincreasing surf. Above, the whole sky was a mass of swiftly movingclouds. The wind increased steadily. 

Another dragging hour went by with no sign of the whale-boat. With theincoming tide the wind had risen until Ellen's heart quaked with agreat fear for the men who must row against it. Her senses tingledwith the welter of torn, tempestuous sea and clouds that seemed tomingle and snatch at her with stinging, salt fingers. Her strainingeyes smarted from the high-flung spray of increasing combers. 

Bracing against the gale, she suddenly found herself aching from thestress of trying, by sheer will, to keep back the force of the storm. Some pagan thing within her had endowed the elements with a godlikepersonality. She caught herself praying, beseeching the sea to rise nohigher; to be kind to her loved ones tossing somewhere on its seethingbosom. Both wind and tide were against the whale-boat now, and lookingout across the rearing waters it seemed to her that no small craftcould live in such a sea. 

A few drops of rain stung her face. Afar off from the southwest morewas coming. . . . She turned hopelessly from it, then almost at onceher dull misery was changed to joy. 

Half a mile out a blurred, dark thing rose for an instant on the crestof a billow. She started to point it out to Jean, but simultaneouslythe rain-squall struck her, drenching, stinging, cutting off for amoment her view of the sea. From under the grey curtain of the drivingrain combers of muddy green raced in, spouting high in wind-torn furyagainst the rocks and rolling swiftly toward her to fling themselvesroaring at her. . . . Again in a lull she caught a glimpse of the boattossing skyward . . . Dropping from sight . . . Rising again andcreeping slowly, slowly onward. . . . 

Hatless and coatless Boreland and Harlan were standing in the bottom ofthe boat shoving on the oars with every ounce of their strength. Twiceshe saw the younger man take the oars alone while her husband bailed. Kayak Bill, rigid, watchful, sat in the stern his hand on the tiller, ready with the instinct that comes of long experience for every motionof the sea. 

Inch by inch they battled their way around the point in the face offlying spray and driving rain. Behind them, like a live thing tuggingon the rope the raft rose and fell on the combs of the dark swells. Pathetic and tear-compelling was the courage of these three men pittingtheir puny strength against the pitiless violence of the elements. Once the little boat seemed to stand still a long time, swashing up anddown in the hollows of the waves, while over it the chop of the seasplashed in spiteful fury. . . . At last it advanced again slowly andKayak swung broadside, turning in towards the beach on which theanxious woman stood. 

A gust of wind caught viciously at the tarpaulin spread over provisionsin the stern. It carried its fluttering blackness straight back intothe white and green of a giant comber directly behind. The onrushingbreaker reared its cruel head . . . Then just as another rain-squallbroke, hiding it from view, it curled down swift, terrifying, and thewhale-boat disappeared in its foaming maw. . . . 

With a cry of despair Ellen rushed to the very edge of the surf, straining her eyes over the wild sea. Had the force of the breakerswept everyone from the whale-boat? Had the canvas stretched tightlyover the provisions been sufficient to keep the water from filling andswamping the boat? Would the violence of the tide and wind bring themin if--if--Kayak Bill had not been torn from his post? Suddenly sheknew that on Kayak depended everything: Kayak Bill who had once been apilot at surf-bound Yakataga; Kayak Bill who had run the raging bars ofthe delta-mouthed Copper River. Would he be equal to the surf of KonKlayu? Could he keep his hold on the tiller? . . . Oh, if therain-curtain would only lift! If she could but see out there in thatfoaming, roaring swelter of water!

She dashed a hand across her face tearing aside the wet hair thatflattened itself against her eyes. . . . The squall was lettingup. . . . She could see now, but there was nothing--nothing butbreakers. . . . A sob tore itself from her throat. She started toturn away. Then dimly, she saw. . . . 

Low in the water, veiled by flying white-caps, they came--Boreland andHarlan bailing desperately, and in the stern Kayak Bill, his hand stillon the tiller, keeping the oarless boat steady a-top the swift, rushingwave that was sweeping them on to the beach!

With outstretched, welcoming arms Ellen waded out into the foam of thespent breaker that grounded the whale-boat almost at her feet. . . . 

That evening the adventurers sat in the warmth of the crowded cabinliving over again the events of the day. Every available corner waspiled high with the wet provisions that had been unloaded from thewhale-boat that afternoon, but contrasted with the gale outside theplace was satisfyingly snug and comfortable. Still lingered the savoryaroma of the duck mulligan that had been their supper. In the Yukonstove the fire roared and crackled as if in defiance of the terrificblasts that shook the cabin. The sense of kinship that comes to thosewho have fought their way together through some great danger was strongupon them all tonight. 

"Holy Mackinaw, boys!"--Boreland emphasized his remarks with the stemof his pipe--"I wouldn't have given a hoot in Hades for our chanceswhen that wave broke! Thought it was all day with us then. Kayak, Harlan, a fellow never realized what small potatoes he is until helooks _up_ from the hollow of a wave!" He stretched his long armscomfortably and laughed. "But . . . After you've been up against aproposition like that, and come through, it certainly makes a man feellike a _man_!"

"It certainly does, Skipper!" Harlan's eyes glowed. He appeared morealive than at any other time since his landing, beginning tounderstand, evidently, something of the hard freedom of the North, forwhich men must either fight or die. 

Of the three men Kayak Bill alone had been silent concerning hissensations. Ellen thought that the praise of the others had smittenhim with a strange shyness. Loll was sitting astride the old man'sknees, questioning him about that moment when the giant breaker hadengulfed the boat. 

Determined on an answer, the boy was urging for the fifth time:

"But, Kayak, what did _you_ feel like?"

"Wall, son, "--Kayak's hazel eyes twinkled--"I just couldn't' figger outfor a minute whether I was a clam . . . Or a pond-lily. "

In the laugh that followed Harlan took up a roll of blankets and wentinto the other room. There was no thought of his crossing the Islandtonight. Kayak Bill's tent had blown down during the afternoon and hewas, as he put it, "forced to seek better anchorage. " He and Harlanwere to spread a bed on the floor of the adjoining room. 

Kobuk, with appealing whines and tentative pawings at the door, hadfinally won an entrance and was curled up in front of the stove. Justbefore supper Shane had come in lugging the pigeon's cage, which heplaced carefully on top of a tall packing box. Ellen felt the bird'spresence in a way that was beginning to trouble her. Tonight it seemedto wear a sullen and dejected look, unlike its usual bold air. Allevening it had sat motionless in the bottom of the cage. The only signof life it displayed was in the deep orange pupils of its eyes which, she was sure, followed her about wherever she went. 

She forced herself to look away from the cage. A hush had fallen onthose in the room. The shrieking of rising wind challenged attention. Ellen listened with a feeling strangely compounded of delight andterror. Never before had she known such a wind. It swept down on theroof of the cabin in woolies, threatening to blow it in, and thenseemingly sucking it out again. The log walls quivered. Every joist, and board creaked and strained. The box on which the lamp stoodvibrated, and the flat yellow flame flickered. The air reverberated tothe thunder of surf that crashed against the hundred reefs on KonKlayu. Ellen had a feeling that the little Island trembled in thesplendid abandon of wind and sea--trembled, yet exulted in the freedomof the elements. She found herself paradoxically fearing, yet hopingthat the next blast of the gale might be heavier. 

Harlan had finished spreading the blankets in the other room. "Skipper, " he said, "I've been wondering how the whale-boat is. Beforewe turn in I think I'll go down and see that we made the old girlfast. " He took up his oilskins from the floor and slipped into them. 

When the door had closed behind him, Kayak Bill looked at Boreland andnodded. 

"I make affirmation, " he drawled, "that there's a paystreak in any manwho looks first after his hoss--or his boat. "

While the significance of the old man's remark was dawning on Ellen, there was an odd lull in the storm. Surprisingly a new sound came tothem. It was a sound blown from the south cliffs; a sound that was, yet was not of the storm; a hollow reverberating roll that was deep andmellow, thrilling and strange. Boreland and Kayak rose simultaneouslyand looked questioningly into each other's eyes. 

"What--" Boreland's words were cut off by the flinging open of thedoor. White-faced and dripping Harlan staggered in, slamming it toshut out the driving rain. He leaned heavily against it. 

"God--Skipper, " he gasped. "The whale-boat-- It's gone!"

At that moment, like a happening in a sinister dream, Ellen was awarethat the pigeon perched high on the packing-box, had suddenly come tolife. It was flapping its wings diabolically, exultingly. 

CHAPTER XVII

THE MYSTERIOUS PRESENCE

The loss of the whale-boat was a calamity staggering in its magnitude. It meant that every pound of provisions left at the West Camp must bepacked on the backs of the men to the cabin. Not only that, but theywere now without any means whatever of leaving the Island. Nothing butthe direst necessity could have forced Boreland to seek the mainland inthe frail craft, but, remembering that the Indians of the coast hadbeen known to journey the hundreds of miles from Sitka to Kodiak inopen canoes, there had been a certain feeling of assurance in thethought that with the whale-boat there was at least a chance ofbringing help to the Island should it be necessary. 

Boreland was the first to recover from the blow. The morning followingthe loss the three men were discussing it. 

"Well, these post mortems get us nowhere, " he said at last as he roseand prepared to stow the provisions away in the loft. "We'll tacklethe job on hand now. After all, Kilbuck will be here with the _Hoonah_soon, and we can get another boat from him. "

All that afternoon while the gale tore at the corners of the littlecabin and the sea beat with increasing violence on the beach and reefs, the men worked with hammer and saw, putting up shelves, making a tableand a bedstead, and erecting two bunks for Jean and Lollie, one abovethe other in the adjoining room. Because he would so soon be leaving, Kayak Bill decided to pitch his tent again in the lee of the house assoon as the storm permitted, and occupy it until the _Hoonah_ came. 

The storm lasted three days. The second day the roof began to leak. The third day the rickety little porch blew down on one end and much ofthe chinking came out from between the logs of the cabin. 

When, on the fourth morning, the wind died away and the sun burst outbrilliantly upon a tumbling, muddy sea and rain-drenched landscape, Boreland's first thought was of repairing the house. 

"We're in a devil of a stew here, " he exclaimed after breakfast. "We'll have to get this place fixed up right now. Still, some of usought to go down to the West Camp and take a look at the cache. Luckily there are no animals on the island, so we have nothing to fearfrom that source. "

"Why can't Loll and I go down to the camp, Shane?" broke in Jean. "Then all you men can get busy on the house. The poor, little oldthing looks as if it had a black eye, with the porch battered down overthe door. "

Boreland was at first not in favor of the idea, doubting that it wassafe for them to go alone. At last, however, he consented. 

"Keep to the upper beach line, " he cautioned, as the two started out, "and remember, if the sea is breaking near the bluff when you comehome, wait on the other side until the tide drops before you attempt tocross. "

After the long confinement in the crowded cabin Jean was as delightedas her capering little nephew to feel again the freedom of the beach. In spite of all the hardships--perhaps because of them--she was growingto love the sands of Kon Klayu, and to look upon this incalculableocean as a sort of fairy god-mother, who, with every tide, brought upsomething different to lay at her feet. She never started out for awalk along the sea without experiencing that delightful, childish senseof expectancy which is so keenly a part of the life of Alaska. 

While Kobuk trotted on ahead she and Loll, remembering the talk ofbeach mining to which they had so often listened, scanned the way forruby sand, the carrier of gold. But this morning the beach was untidywith great masses of fresh kelp and seaweeds from the deep, torn by thestorm and scattered everywhere. 

"Oh, look, Jean! The gulls have found something!" Loll's finger, pointing ahead indicated a cloud of screaming, white-breasted birdsthat were rising and falling on slate-tipped wings over some objectbelow them. "Let's hurry and see what it is. "

But Kobuk was before them. Dashing on ahead he plunged into the melee, frightening the gulls from their find so that they flew shrieking intothe air as the girl and her little companion ran up to discover theremains of a large fish on the sand. It was a halibut nearly six feetlong. With the exception of the bones but a small portion and the headremained, for the birds had been gorging on it for some time. Theflesh, however, looked fresh and firm and white. 

Jean regarded it thoughtfully. "If we had nothing else to eat, Lollie, we _might_ eat a fish like this--that is if we got it before the gullshad been at it. " In an emergency even a great storm might be made toserve, since its very violence flung up from the deep such fare asthis. At any rate, the gulls appreciated it, for even as Loll and Jeanstood there, the birds had flown back, settling upon their find, theirstrong, lemon-colored, crimson-splotched beaks tearing greedily at theflesh. In their eagerness they flew thrillingly close, cold, gold-ringed eyes staring fiercely into the faces of the two, powerfulwings fanning their cheeks. Loll, seeing Jean shrink away from anoverly bold bird, took her hand and tugged her away from thediscordantly screaming mass. 

"Gosh, Jean, if those fellows were very hungry and I was alone, I betthey'd take a peck at _me_!"

Recalling a day at Katleean, when she had stood by a creek watching thesalmon struggle up through the shallow water, while screeching gullsswooped exultantly down on the helpless creatures and gouged the eyesout of the living fish, Jean shuddered and quickened her steps. 

They approached the tent cache at the West Camp. It appeared intact. The wind, being from the southwest had struck with full force on theopposite end of the Island. Jean untied the flap of the tent and wentinside. The provisions were piled up nearly to the ridgepole at theback. Lollie, poking about, came upon a piece of rope, which, boylike, he took outside and wound about his waist. Jean heard him stumblingover the guy-ropes at the side. Then from the back came his call:

"Jean! Come here!"

The girl ran out and joined him. He was pointing to the back of thetent. The pegs which had fastened it to the earth were uprooted. Thecanvas swung free. But what filled her with momentary conjecture wasthat which lay at her feet. A sack of flour evidently had been draggedout from under the wall of the tent and ripped open, for the sand waswhitened with the doughy mixture resulting from the rain. 

At this moment it did not occur to the girl to be frightened. Therewere no tracks in the sand other than hers and Loll's. Evidently, shethought, in the haste to load the boat before the storm, the men haddropped the sack and it had burst open. 

"But how careless of them, Loll, not to peg the tent down again, " shesaid. Loll, however, was already headed for the first camp-site madewhen landing on the northeast side of the Island. Her call brought hiseager answer:

"Aw, come on, Jean, I want to see how drowned we'd be if we'd stayedthere during the storm. "

Smiling to herself at the boy's love of dwelling on their narrowescapes from death, real and imaginary, the girl turned and picking upa stone drove in a few of the tent-pegs before she followed him. 

On each side of the trail great patches of rice-grass had beenflattened from the force of the wind and rain, and the air was filledwith the sweet smell of vegetation drying in the sun. As sheapproached the other side, the blue sky curved down to meet the oceanon a far straight line. The yellow-green of the sea was set off byastonishing areas of clearest cobalt blue, and the flying spray fromcombers breaking for miles out on the North Shoals, caught the sunlightin a glory of rainbow mist. 

"See, I told you, Jean, " Loll nodded sagely and pointed ahead as sheovertook him. 

A hundred feet above the place where the first camp had been therice-grass had been torn out by the roots and whitened drift-logs andkelp were massed there confusedly. 

In silence the girl stood looking at the spot. Emotions of fear, thankfulness and something of reverence swept her. Lollie, lookingdown over the freckles on his nose, vested the lower part of his facein his hand in a manner reminiscent of Kayak Bill. 

"Escaped, by hell, by the skin of our teeth!" he gloated. 

The tide had been coming in fast during the past half hour. Jean, noting it, suddenly turned back, and with uneasy haste began thehomeward journey. 

Opposite the little lake where Boreland had shot the first ducks, Lollinsisted on running up to the beach line to look over and see whetherthere were any more birds feeding there. Jean, waiting for him, watched him make his way through the short grass to the narrow, sandylake-shore, and then stoop to look at something. . . . All at once heraised his head, and with a strange, blanched look on his little face, glanced quickly, fearfully behind him into the tall alder thickettoward the hill. Then, wide-eyed, he sprang toward her without a sound. 

"Wha--what is it, Loll?" she gasped. 

The boy's eyes shone with excitement. "It--it--it was a wild beast'stracks, Jean. This long--" He measured off about twelve inches betweenhis trembling hands--"and it had claws--big ones that digged deep intothe sand!"

"But there are no beasts on the Island, Loll! You must be mistaken!"

"No, no!" Loll's face quivered in his anxiety to convince her of thetruth of his statements. Knowing the youngster's unconscious tendencytoward exaggeration, she was doubtful. There could be no animal on theIsland. But . . . To make sure . . . She herself would go back to see. 

She looked about for Kobuk, but the dog had gone on toward the bluff. Impressing on Loll the necessity of remaining where he was until sheshould come back she turned toward the lake again, running. 

As she drew near the margin, unreasoning terror of the unknown began totake possession of her. Every pile of driftwood, every alder bushbecame alive with sinister possibilities. She drove herself forward. She could see the stretch of sand where Loll had stood. She could seethat there were marks of some kind upon it. Trembling, fearful, herheart beating like a hammer in her breast, she pressed forward andlooked closely at the marks. . . . Loll was right. Here on Kon Klayuwere monster tracks of--what she did not know. 

She wheeled swiftly and ran back to where the boy waited. Without aword she snatched his hand and fled with him down the beach toward thebluff and home. 

Kobuk, far in advance, was picking his way along the bluff, and now asthey ran Jean became aware that a new danger threatened them. The tidehad come in so far that even from a distance she could see the foam ofspent breakers washing up against the rocky wall ahead. Boreland hadsaid to wait until the tide fell, before attempting to pass the bluff, but with the new, strange terror behind them, she had no thought ofobeying. The sea, roaring almost at her feet, seemed kinder and moreto be trusted than the unknown beast lurking in the alders, or perhapsslinking along, even now, above the beach line, watching, waiting tospring out at them any moment. 

Arrived at the bluff she saw, with dismay, that all along, theback-wash of breakers licked the base. She stopped, tightening herhold on Loll's hand. She looked a long moment at the huge rollers ofthe incoming tide that crashed so close to her, and then back fromwhence she had come. 

Loll raised his sober little face to the sky. 

"God, " he said, conversationally, "I guess _you'll_ have to take ahand. "

Jean slipped the rope from about his waist. She tied one end to himand the other about her own body in clumsy, womanish knots. 

"Lollie, "--despite her efforts her voice quavered--"we're going to runfor it. Cling tightly to my hand, dear. "

At that moment a wave receded. They ran dizzily forward in theshifting, wet gravel of the beach. When the next incoming comber wasbeginning to curl down from the top, Jean dashed to the bluff. Shielding the little fellow below her, she clung to the uneven shale ofits base, presenting her back to the billow that crashed with adeafening roar just behind her. 

Swift, terrifying, the wash of the breaker boiled and foamed abouttheir feet, to their ankles, to their knees. It made Jean's head swim. It paralyzed her power of thought, leaving her with only the instinctto cling. She had to wait while two more breakers rolled in and brokebefore she saw a chance to stagger to the next point of safety. Itseemed to her that hours passed thus while she and Loll struggled, wetand battered, onward. 

They had gone but two-thirds of the way when, glancing at the incomingwave to calculate how far they might run, she became aware of amountainous unbroken roller immediately behind it--a watery monsterthat humped its back into a ragged, dancing crest high above her head. It advanced in eager, liquid blackness. She knew it must break nearlyagainst the bluff where they stood. 

Her desperate eyes espied a rough ledge just above her. With thestrength born of despair she caught up her nephew and tossed him tosafety. Frantically she herself tried to climb the bluff. . . . Shethought she heard a man's voice shouting to her. . . . There was amoment when Loll's white face looked down at her through a haze. . . . A moment when his little hands moved swiftly taking a turn with therope about a ragged, upstanding piece of rock. Then a boiling, roaringsound filled her ears. . . . An avalanche of dark water crashed downupon her, freezing her, smothering her, crushing her. She felt herbody thrown high against the stony wall. . . . 

As she was whirled, choking, into darkness and oblivion there flashedthrough her mind the thought:

"This, then, is how it feels to die. "

CHAPTER XVIII

THE PERIL OF THE SURF

After Jean and Loll had left for the West Camp that morning Harlan, Boreland and Kayak Bill set to work repairing the roof of the cabin andthe porch. From his position astride the peak Harlan could hear Ellenbusy at her tasks indoors. As the tide began to run in he saw her cometo the door from time to time and walk down onto the beach to look forthe absent ones. Apparently she was vaguely uneasy. The Island'spossibilities for good or bad were yet unknown to her and she wasevidently never quite secure in her mind when any of her household wasout of her sight. After one of the last excursions to the beach shehad spoken of the fact that the waves had reached the base of the cliff. 

"They won't be able to come now for a while, " she said, addressing themen on the roof. And then she added: "Could two of you give me alittle help inside, Shane? I need to move the bed. "

Kayak and Boreland accordingly slid down from the ridge and followedher into the house. 

Gregg paused in his work of nailing tar-paper over the boards, andstretched wide his arms. He was taking a cursory glance toward theincoming tide when his attention was attracted by the figure of Kobukambling up the trail from the beach. The dog was dripping wet and atintervals he stopped to shake himself violently. Kobuk must have beenplaying along the edge of the surf, Harlan thought. And yet, he musthave crossed the sands below the bluff . . . And the tide was only anhour from the flood. . . . But of course Jean would not dream ofattempting a crossing now. He took up his hammer again. . . . Suddenly he hooked it over the ridge. At any rate, he would go downand make certain. . . 

Slipping off the roof he ran down to the beach. There he sped alongits curve until his eye could command the length of the bluff. . . . He stopped aghast. Midway Jean and the boy were coming on, stumblingacross the sand left bare by a receding wave, dashing to the raggedbase of the cliff and clinging to it while the incoming comber brokeand seethed about them, then rushing on again! Owing to the storm ofthe past days the billows were higher than usual. Also there was yetthe most dangerous portion of the way to be traversed. 

With a call for help Harlan started toward them, he also racing as thebreakers ran out, and climbing the cliff out of their reach as theybroke. 

He shouted to Jean to attract her attention. If he could only sign toher to ascend the bluff and hold fast till he came! Vainly he tried tomake his voice heard above the deafening roar. She neither heard norsaw him. . . . Desperately he plunged on, not taking time now to climbup for his own safety, but ploughing through the onrushing waves. Oncea crashing comber caught and threw him flat on the shifting gravel. Before he could right himself it had sucked him almost into the maw ofthe next down-curling sea. Fortunately it was a small one. He wasable to regain his feet and stagger to a hand hold. 

Then at the same instant that Jean's eye caught it, he became aware ofthe huge, unbroken billow advancing toward the struggling figures ofthe girl and boy. He saw her snatch up the child and toss him to thesafety of the ledge, saw her ineffectual efforts to follow . . . Thenthe dancing crest broke and Jean became but a formless dark objecttossed like a drift-log on the foaming waters that spouted against thefoot of the bluff. 

With a despairing cry, Harlan plunged forward, and as the great wave, the first of three, receded, he reached her. 

Limp and unconscious she hung from the rope that bound her to theterrified small boy above, and he saw that the little fellow had takena turn with it about a jagged rock. But for this timely precaution thegirl must have been drawn back into the sea and the child with her. 

An extra long recession of the water gave him time to lift the inertbody and throw it across his shoulder, and thus, while the second giantroller broke at his hack he gripped with his torn hands into the sharpshale and held on. As it ebbed he hoisted her to the ledge above him. 

From the temporary safety of this narrow shelf he considered theirchances. It was impossible to scale the face of the bluff above him, yet the tide would not be full for an hour. Owing to the enormous sea, they would all three be swept into the ocean if they remained wherethey were. There was but one thing he could do. 

He laid a hand on Loll's quaking shoulder. 

"Pal, " he said quietly, "will you be afraid to stay here while I carryJean to the other side of the bluff?"

The boy looked down at the clamorous, booming tide and hesitated. . . . He swallowed hard, blinking. Then he looked at the inert form of hisaunt, and meeting Harlan's eyes, shook his head bravely. 

"Good! Hang on tight then, old man, and I'll be back for you beforeyou can say 'Jack Robinson'!"

He cut the rope about Jean's waist, and backing down from the ledge, took her again across his shoulder. As Lollie's hand reached out andbegan coiling the rope, he turned to watch the breakers, that he mighttime the first dash of his flight back to safety. 

The tide was higher now, the combers nearer, and he had but one freehand with which to cling to the base of the bluff when the envelopingwaters rose about him. He plunged. He staggered. . . . His sensesafter a few moments were bludgeoned into numbness by the roar of thesea; his body was sore from the impact of beating water and stinginggravel. He struggled on step by step, feeling his way along theshifting beach, until only the primal instinct of self-preservation wasguiding him in the grim game with the tide. 

At last he reached the other end of the bluff. He reeled up to the drysand and let the body of the girl slip from his shoulder. As he did sohe heard a shout. Boreland and his wife were running down from thecabin trail. He did not pause but plunged back again through thedrenching maelstrom. 

In a moment their frantic calls were swallowed up in the deafening roarof waters. Would he have strength to fight his way back? Would hefind the boy where he had left him, or had a comber swept him off thenarrow shelf? Harlan was unutterably weary now. He longed to let gohis hold on the rocky wall, to cease fighting, and let himself be takenout into obliteration; but he drove himself on . . . And on. . . . After a long while he gained the perilous perch where Loll bravelyawaited him above the roar. 

He rested a moment. The little fellow's absolute faith in him gave himthe will to fight his way back again. He took the child on hisshoulders and once more plunged into the watery hell. 

How he returned to safety he never knew. He was conscious only ofreaching the place where Jean lay . . . Of asking whether or not thegirl was still alive . . . Then the great weariness overpowered him. He sank down on the sand beside Jean, and Lollie's glad shout, as hewas clasped in his mother's arms, floated through his mental numbnesslike a clear toy balloon drifting up in a fog. 

Three hours later Harlan was resting on the bed in the living-room. Inthe adjoining room where Jean lay in her little bunk he knew that thegirl was hearing, from Ellen's guarded lips, the story of her rescue. On recovering consciousness she had tried to rise, but one side, whereshe had struck against the rocks, was bruised and so painful that, though she rebelled, she would be obliged to remain in bed for theremainder of the day at least. 

Loll had already told the story of the mysterious animal tracks by thelake, and the scattered flour at the cache. Boreland had taken hisrifle and gone down to the place as soon as the tide permitted. AsHarlan lay there thinking, he was filled with an intense relief--heknew now that the spectre of the tundra that had so worried him was nocreature of his own disordered brain. Whatever it might be, it was offlesh and blood. He could speak of it now. 

Boreland returned about supper time. 

"Did you see 'em, dad?" shouted Loll as his father came in the door. 

"What was it, Shane?" Jean called from the other room. 

Boreland replaced his rifle in the rack over the head of the bed. 

"Bear tracks, " he answered succinctly. "Hind foot measures fourteenand a half inches!"

CHAPTER XIX

HOME-MAKING

"I figure that the Kodiak cub the Alaska Fur and Trading Companybrought over here as a pet, is now wandering about the Island afull-grown grizzly, instead of being in bear heaven, as the people ofKatleean thought, " said Boreland, as they all sat about the suppertable. "Confound it, it makes it mighty bad for us, with all that grubdown there at the West Camp! If the beast takes a notion he can gothere and raise the very devil. "

"I'll take my blankets down there tomorrow and guard the cache until weget the provisions transferred, " announced Harlan, quickly. "I'd liketo get a shot at a Kodiak bear. "

"Son, I ain't a-castin' any asparagus on yore shootin' ability, but Iclaims the right to shoot that anamile myself!" spoke up Kayak Bill. 

"Funny!" Boreland laughed. "I had the same idea myself. "

After supper they discussed the problem of getting the remainder of theprovisions down to the cabin at once. It was decided that each manshould take a turn guarding the cache. Boreland finally left theconversation to Kayak and Harlan while he sat at the table silent, onehand clutching his hair, the other drawing queer-looking cart-wheelsand figures on a paper before him. Just before the others started toleave for the night, he sprang up, with an exclamation. 

"By thunder, I've got it!" he announced enthusiastically. "Fellows, we're going to make a nautical cart and sail her on the beach of KonKlayu!"

The nautical cart, when completed, proved to be a hybrid contrivancewith two large wheels. The wheels had a cumbersome appearance, owingto the double rims, which were tired with barrel-staves cut in two andmailed crosswise to prevent sinking into the sand. The top of the cartwas a platform eight feet long and four wide, with two handlesprojecting at each end. Rising from its middle was a mast for whichKayak Bill rigged up a sail from a tarpaulin. 

Boreland stood off and regarded the finished child of his brain. Beside him Kayak eyed it for some minutes in admiring silence. 

"By--hell!" he drawled at last. "Sired by a whisky barrel, spawned bya stretcher, and a throw-back to a Chinese sampan!"

Boreland laughed. "I got my idea for this little beauty from somethingI read once about the sailing wheelbarrows used by farmers in theinterior of China, Bill! I'll bet you, with a fair wind, we can makeall of five miles an hour with her on the beach!"

The cart exceeded even its builder's expectations. Steered to the WestCamp the next afternoon it was loaded with provisions and the sailhoisted. With Harlan between the two front handles and Boreland at therear, the odd vehicle was headed toward home. The sail, twice as largeas the cart, strained at the mast from the force of the wind behind it, and to the men between the handles, the load seemed hardly to matter atall. Bare-footed, with trousers rolled up to their knees as in boyhooddays, the two men found it a new and distinctly pleasant sensation tobe swept along thus before wind. In a few minutes Kayak Bill, smokingplacidly before the provision tent, was left far behind. 

Remembering the back-breaking loads he had carried to the cabin, Harlangrinned back at the bellying sail behind him as he sped along. 

"This is child's play, Boreland!" he shouted to his partner. "Theproblem of transportation is solved; for if there's one thing we neverlack on Kon Klayu, it's wind!"

And so it came about that, thanks to the nautical cart, which thoughthe subject of much jesting, did the work, a month from the time oflanding found all that remained of the adventurers' outfit transferredto the cabin. Not once during this time was the bear seen in thevicinity of the cache, though sometimes fresh tracks appeared on themargin of the little lake--now christened Bear Paw Lake--where Loll haddiscovered them. 

With the boards taken from the tumble-down shack an extra shed had beenbuilt near the cabin, and the porch repaired and strengthened. Harlanfound time to make a much larger cage for the pigeon. As he toldEllen, the bird, confined in such close quarters, might not thrive. 

Harlan noticed that despite Ellen's determination to leave the Islandon the coming of the _Hoonah_ she took a woman's delight in doing herbest to make life comfortable with the few things at her command. Since it was the dictum of fate--if she would be with the man sheloved--that she must spend so much of her married life in tents alongnew trails, floating down rivers in flatboats, or wayfaring intrappers' cabins, she sooner or later accepted those conditions. Doubtless, many times she rebelled in her heart. Any woman would. But, he fancied, she was the kind who would chide herself for themomentary disloyalty to Shane and with an increased tenderness, set hercapable, feminine touch to perform some new marvel of transformation ineach wild place of the moment. 

In the cabin on Kon Klayu she accomplished much. With newspapers andmagazines found in the box of books from Add-'em-up Sam's collection, she papered the rooms. At the new windows which framed a wide expanseof ever-changing sea, giving a sense of space and freedom to theliving-room, she hung cheese-cloth curtains. The folds of these drapeda book shelf beside the window, supporting few books but holding in itsempty space the gold-scale, unused as yet on Kon Klayu, and glintingnewly as it caught the light on its polished surface. In a corner ofthe room the bed was gay with Indian blankets and bright cushions. Thehomely cheer of a red tablecloth was reflected in the bright nickel ofthe shaded lamp on the table, and on the white, sand-scoured floor along strip of rag carpet from Ellen's old home in the States, made anote of old-fashioned, comforting cleanliness. On the Yukon stove thekettle sang cheerily to the pots and pans hanging in a shining row onthe wall behind and the room was pervaded by the faint, clean smellfrom the woodbox piled high with newly-split wood that had lain long inthe sea. 

Harlan followed Boreland into the house the day Ellen finished hercurtains. He came upon the big prospector standing with his arm acrosshis wife's shoulders. 

"I'm blessed of the saints, entirely, " Shane was saying, as he bent tolay his cheek affectionately against her hair. "God love you, Ellen, little fellow. . . . You could make a home out of a drygoods box. " . . . 

After the rescue of Loll and Jean at the bluff, Harlan noticed thatEllen's silent gratitude found vent in a dozen little ways, though hewas aware also that he never had an opportunity of seeing the girlalone. Since the _Hoonah_ was expected any day now, Ellen hadsuggested that the young man bring his blankets across the Island and"bunk" with Kayak Bill until their departure. Had it been offeredthree weeks earlier, this arrangement would have been eagerly accepted. But Gregg's attitude toward life on Kon Klayu had changed. It wasstill changing. 

He was now cooking his own meals at the Hut, clumsily, it is true, since his unaccustomed hands had never before held a frying-pan. Buthe was learning, and he was surprised to find himself taking pleasurein the experience. He thanked Ellen for her invitation, but refusedit. He would not have been human had he not felt a certainsatisfaction in doing so. 

He wondered tentatively if Kayak Bill had suspected the struggle thatwas going on within him during his first days on the Island--the fearof delirium tremens, the fight he was making to conquer the craving forliquor which continued, intermittently now, to torment him. The oldman said nothing on the subject, but on one pretext or another Harlannoticed that Kayak managed to spend much of his leisure time at theHut. Often, if the night were fine, he would roll up in a blanketbefore the fire and stay there until morning. 

Kayak Bill's sauntering feet had followed Dame Fortune over everygold-trail from Dawson to Nome, and there was no trick of Alaskan camplife that he had not learned. He never tried to force his knowledge onthe younger man, but casually, in the course of his slow, whimsicalmonologues, he taught Harlan much that was of inestimable value to him. Indeed, if it had not been for the old man, Harlan might have beenforced to swallow his pride long before and ask for shelter at theBoreland cabin, for despite his brave talk of living in the Hut, it wasa shelter of the rudest type, built, probably, as a feeding station bythe experimenting fox-farmers. 

Its structure interested him. It was made by standing whale ribs up onend about two feet apart in a circle. The spaces between were filledwith turf, which abounded all over the island, thus making a wall twofeet thick. Harlan had repaired it, and in the words of Kayak whohelped him, had "rigged" himself up a stove from kerosene cans. It wasthe old hootch-maker who showed him how to arrange stones to form acrude, open-air fireplace in front of his door for use in fine weather. It was Kayak Bill who taught his blundering hands the trail way ofstirring up a bannock and baking it in a frying-pan propped up beforethe blaze. 

Harlan now had less time to think about himself. The little can stoverequired much finely chopped firewood to keep it going. The open-airfireplace consumed large quantities of drift which he had to chop withan axe, since the one saw on the Island was needed at the cabin. Afterhis day's work with Boreland, he had his meals to prepare. There werebrown beans to clean and cook, and sourdough hotcakes to set for themorning. Kayak had taught him to prepare his sourdoughs--a resourcewhich was to become the food mainstay of all on the Island. Harlanlearned from the old man that the sourdough hotcake, or flapjack is astypical of Alaska as the glacier. The wilderness man carries, always, a little can filled with a batter of it; with this he starts theleavening of his bread, or, with the addition of a pinch of soda hefries it in the form of flapjacks. So typical a feature of Alaska isthe sourdough pot that the old timer in the North is called a"Sourdough. "

Harlan grew to have a real fondness for his Hut--the only home he hadever made for himself. Its very primitiveness endeared it to him. Hegrew also to look forward to the fine evenings when he and Kayak, stretched before the open fireplace with their backs to a bleachedwhale rib, smoked and yarned and sang, while they watched the leapingdriftwood flames. 

Strange, picturesque characters of the last frontier stalked throughall Kayak Bill's tales: Reckless Bonanza Kings of Klondyke days, buyingwith their new-found gold the love of painted women; simple-hearted, gentle Aleuts kissing the footprints of skirted, bearded, Russianpriests; pathetic, gay ladies of adventure; half-mad hermits of thehills; secretive squaw-men, and wistful, emotional half-breeds--allthese Kayak Bill made to live again in the glow of the evening fire. 

In his quaint, whimsical way he told of the prospector--that braveheart who makes gold but an excuse for his going forth to conquer thewilds. Harlan came to understand them--the lure of gold, and theirslogan: "_This_ time we will strike it. " Through Kayak Bill's eyes hesaw them aged, broken by the rigors of many northern winters, but withthe indomitable spirit of youth still in them, a recurrent yearningthat defies age, rheumatism and poverty, and sends them with theirgrub-stakes out questing into the hills. He saw them, with picks, andgold pans wandering happily during the wonderful Alaskan summer andfall, and when the frost paints the green above timber-line with russetand gold and the Northern Lights beckon them back to the settlements, he saw them arrive, tired, penniless, perhaps, but satisfied, andalready planning the next trip into the magnetic golden hills. 

And one night, being in a pensive mood, Kayak told of a partner of his, the Bard of the Kuskokwim, an old northern poet unknown except in theValley o' Lies, who had put the prospector's soul hunger into verse:

 "We yearned beyond the skyline, With a wistful wish to know What was hidden by the high line, Glist'ning with eternal snow. And we yearned and wished and wondered At the secrets there untold, As the glaciers growled and thundered, Came the whisper: 'Red, raw gold!'" [1]

As if he feared Harlan might think him sentimental, Kayak Bill finishedhis recital with:

"Yas, son, that old cuss partner o' mine was always recitin' thempoetry sayin's o' his. Durned if he wouldn't vocabulate to the treesor the hills when there warn't another soul nearer to him than ahundred miles!"

But of Kayak Bill, himself, Harlan noted, there was never a personalthing. In all his tales the old hootch-maker was ever the spectator, amused, kindly, philosophical. 

Sometimes the two were silent--with the companionable silence that thecamp-fire instills. Leaning back against the whale-rib, while theembers died in the fireplace and the sea below took on its veil oftwilight, they mused and listened to the universe. It was at suchtimes that Harlan began to feel, though faintly, the healing, vibrantenergy that comes to those who live close to Mother Earth. Katleeanand the bunkful of liquor that at first had occupied so much of histhought, occurred to him less frequently. The States--and all that hadhappened to him there were becoming a dream. He began to feel asthough he had always lived as he was living now. To his surprise asthe time drew near for the arrival of the _Hoonah_ he found himselfunconcerned, indifferent. Like Kayak Bill, he was learning to facelife serenely, undisturbed as to the morrow, but doing his best today. 

[1] From the unpublished poems of Edward C. Cone, Bard of Kuskokwim. 

CHAPTER XX

GOLD

Toward the end of September another heavy gale swept the Island. Thistime the little party was snug and warm in the cabin with theprovisions under cover, and while the storm raged outside, Ellen andBoreland climbed up into the loft and made a list of the supplies onhand. In the log Ellen had begun to keep the day they landed on KonKlayu she made this entry:

"Heavy gale blowing from the southwest. We hear again that strangerolling sound from the south cliffs. Discovered today that all rolledoats and flour is musty from being wetted by the tide when we landed, and much of it is spoiled. Fortunately the flour caked on the outsideand the inside is fairly well preserved. We used the last of ourbutter today. We have sugar for one more week. "

Though she said little her growing anxiety communicated itself in someoccult way to the other members of her household, even to Loll, to whomshe gave daily lessons in reading, writing and arithmetic. The littlefellow was at this time moved to write and illustrate a book on somediscarded letter-heads of a defunct life insurance company. Ellenbreathed a prayer of thanks that he so well entertained himself onstormy days. 

On the first page of this work appeared the text of Old Mother Hubbardwritten in the boy's large, childish, downhill hand with spelling ofdistinct originality. Above it in a flaming red wrapper a lady with alarge bust and impossible tiny feet, slanted tipsily toward someshelves--conspicuously empty, while in the offing quite aloof from thelady a lean, pale-green animal stood with despondent drooping head andtail. Other nursery favorites that had to do with eating and food, followed. They were illustrated in red and black and green. The redwas made by a crayon pencil, miraculously produced by Kayak Bill; thegreen was obtained by the simple expedient of chewing up rice-grass. Toward the end of the book were many of Lollie's own poems, composedfor his mother, and beautified with marginal decorations of flyinggulls, sailing ships and fat button-eyed daisies, all bearing evidenceof repeated erasures with a wet little finger. 

 "The red sun sinks down in the sea of the West, The wind goes to sleep. Seagulls flies homes to their nests. And the gold stars their watches keeps. I think the weather will be fine. So the _Hoonah_ can come in. If she don't we will be out of grub. And O, what will we do then. "

Thus Lollie indicated the unspoken thought which underlay all theactivities of the Boreland household now. They were subconsciouslycounting the days until the White Chief should come to the Island withthe _Hoonah_ and, while they counted, they were beginning to fear. 

During the time of this second great gale Boreland and Kayak Bill madeready for mining by making a gold-saving device called a rocker. Itwas a box-like affair four feet long, eighteen inches wide and the samedimension in height. The front end was open as well as the top and itwas mounted on rockers like a cradle. Over the back end was a sieve orhopper, and immediately beneath slanted a frame covered with blanketcloth. The pay-dirt was to be poured into the hopper and running waterturned in on it. While the cradle was rocked with a jerky movement thesand sifted down through the hopper to the slanting apron. Much of thegold, Boreland explained, would be caught in the nap of the apron, andin the little sag at the bottom of it, but the sand would flow on outover the bottom of the rocker which was also lined with blanket clothheld down by cleats nailed crosswise at intervals. The sand, beinglighter than the gold, was washed on down the length of the rockerfloor and thence out on the ground, while the cleats and the rough napof the cloth caught any further yellow metal. 

With his Irishman's gift for seeing life through childish eyes, Boreland made a small duplicate of the rocker for his son's use, a giftwhich, in a way, was for the purpose of distracting Loll's mind from amisfortune which had befallen Kobuk during the storm. The dog inplaying about the shed where the men were working, had knocked down thelong cross-cut saw, and the sharp teeth had fallen with full forceacross Kobuk's right foreleg cutting it cruelly and, it was feared, cracking the bone. Shane had cleansed the wound with the last bit ofantiseptic and bound it up in splints, but Kobuk's limping had broughtforth Loll's extravagant proffers of sympathy. 

The first receding tide after the six-day storm found the whole partyon the beach. With the provisions under cover and the cabin repairedall was clear for the mining. They were patrolling the beach forprospects. 

Kayak Bill and Gregg turned southward toward Skeleton Rib, as Harlan'sgrowing interest in the round boulders of that vicinity often drew himthere. Shane and his family took the beach around the bluff toward thenorth. Ellen carried the rifle, for though there had been no time yetto hunt, especially for the great bear that roamed Kon Klayu, she wasalways on the alert. Boreland, happier than he had been since hislanding, was at last outfitted with a shovel and a gold pan, emblems ofhis romantic calling. 

Each storm that tore the Island produced a different effect on thebeach. When they rounded the bluff this morning, instead of findingpiles of seaweed and gravel tossed up as they had after the first greatgale, they were surprised at vast areas of bedrock from which everyvestige of sand had been swept away. Tiny rills of water, drainagefrom the tundra banks above the beachline, flowed down the shallowcrevices of the clayey, hard substance. 

Jean, who had never seen a nugget in its native state, was excitedlysearching for pieces of gold. Ellen smiled to see her, with Loll ather heels, running hither and thither, expecting any moment to comeupon large, brassy-looking lumps resting like eggs on the hardpan. 

Boreland skirted the edges of the bedrock. 

They had reached the vicinity of Bear Paw Lake when abruptly he droppedto his knees and looked keenly at the formation beneath him. In aninstant they were all running toward him. 

He raised his face transfigured with an eager joy. 

"Gosh all hemlock!" he exclaimed. "Here it is at last! Rubysand--_kon klayu_! Look, El! Jean!"

At the edge of the bedrock dark beach sand was mixed with minutegarnet-like particles that imparted to it a tinge of ruby. A firstglance revealed nothing but rills of water running down through thesand carrying it through the depression in the bedrock. Like livethings the atoms crawled slowly along the seam. Suddenly each watchercaught her breath. Amid the shifting flow there came a glint--thenanother. A second later, in the roughened surface of the bedrock layflakes of virgin gold!

Gold!

No thrill that gold can buy ever equals the wild ecstasy experienced bythose who find it. Jean threw her arms successively about her happysister and brother-in-law, and finished by capering over the bedrockwith Loll as a willing partner. 

When the first excitement had spent itself, Boreland sent the boy toKayak Bill and Harlan with word to bring shovels and the wheelbarrow. It was necessary to gather and convey the pay-sand to a place of safetybefore the next tide covered it, as the surf of Kon Klayu was too heavyto permit surf-mining. Marking the spot with a piece of drift Borelandcontinued down the beach with the others. 

They followed the shore as far as the site of the West Camp looking forfurther patches of ruby sand, but found none. 

Having learned that by the aid of a hairpin and Boreland's knife theycould pick up the colors of gold that were caught in the crevices, Ellen and Jean were on their knees examining the seams in the bedrockwhen Kayak and Harlan arrived. The particles of gold wereextraordinarily flat and thin, and the largest flakes only could beseen with the naked eye. There were few of these, but no miner wasever prouder of his spring clean-up than was Jean of the ten colors shecollected in her drinking cup. 

Harlan could hardly credit his eyesight when he beheld the yellowflakes Jean showed to him. . . . Gold on the Island of Kon Klayu afterall! . . . Then he recalled that on that memorable night of thePotlatch dance the White Chief had admitted there was gold, but whilethe tides occasionally uncovered pay-sand rich beyond most placers, there would follow months when not a single color showed up in thesands of Kon Klayu. It was not a paying proposition. This deposit ofruby sand must be what Kayak Bill called a mere "flash in the pan. "Though he tried not to let his co-workers become aware of it, Harlanwas filled with doubts. 

All that day, while the tide permitted, the men wheeled pay-sand to aplace of safety above the high-tide line and the following morning, thecart, speeding before a spanking breeze, carried all the mining outfit, including Loll's rocker, down to the pay-dirt. Ellen, because ofhousehold duties was the only one to remain at the cabin. 

Once more the night-tide had shifted the sands, and they found no traceof any gold-carrier. The bedrock that had been bare the day before nowlay under several feet of gravel. The complete change in thetopography of the shore was almost weird. It filled them withwondering and a strange respect for the mysterious workings of the sea. 

The rockers were set up on the beach just below Bear Paw Lake, and witha flume made of a series of boards nailed together in a V-shape, waterwas conveyed to the hopper of the rocker. Jean and Loll, beforebeginning their own preparations, watched while Boreland and his twohelpers rocked out the first gold. After glints of yellow began toappear in the nap of the cloth apron, they turned to their own outfit. 

Harlan solved their water problem by digging a hole below the largerocker and catching the waste after it had done its work above. Longbefore the pool was completed he and Jean were on terms of laughingfriendliness. This was the first time he had been with her, withoutbeing uncomfortably aware of the watchful and disapproving eye ofEllen. He felt a distinct exhilaration. 

He poured sand into the hopper while Jean rocked and Loll, detailingmuch little-boy wisdom, dipped up the water from the hole beside them. 

Though it was her first year in the North, Jean, he thought, had falleninto the ways of the country with the natural ability that marks theyoung sea-gull launching out on the deep. Evidently she had dressedhastily that morning. Her khaki-flannel shirt, belted loosely withgreen leather and worn like a Russian blouse, lay open at the throat. Her mass of dark hair was tucked under a green tam o' shanter perchedat an unconsciously rakish angle. Unframed by her hair her face had apiquant, boyish look, and her wide-set hazel eyes seemed larger thanusual. There was a ghost of a golden freckle or two on the bridge ofher straight little nose. From her green tam to her stout leatherboots Harlan could find no evidence of a single feminine artifice--nota thing, perhaps, that might have appealed to him a year ago, --yet hewas conscious of a stir of pleasure as he looked at her. 

He placed a shovel of sand in the hopper, spilling half of it on Lolliewho was at the same moment pouring in water. The girl laughed at hisclumsiness, as she loosened her hold on the rocker handle andstraightened, tossing her head so that the tam assumed a different butequally alluring angle. Her sleeves were rolled to the elbow. She hadthe lithe slimness, and the greens and browns that suggested theoutdoors. When she turned away from him presently to look out over thesun-lit sea, Harlan rested his shovel in the sand to watch her. 

"I wonder where my Kobuk is this morning?" The remark came from Lollsquatting at the edge of the water-hole, waiting for it to fill again. 

Neither answered him. 

"Have you noticed how clearly, on days like this, one can see themainland, though it is ninety miles away?" Jean asked, her mindapparently intent on the far horizon. "There seems to be something inthe atmosphere that brings it nearer. "

"I whisht I knew where my Kobuk is, I do!" murmured Loll plaintively. The youngster was evidently getting tired of work. He was filling thepail listlessly, emptying the contents over his own red little hand. 

Jean's eyes roaming out over the shining ocean spaces, rested upon aspot in the northwest. Very low on the rim of the sea lay a mountainrange, its purple and white ethereal in the distance. 

"I _said_ I whisht I knew where my Kobuk is!" There was a slightbelligerent tone in Lollie's voice which Jean, doubtless, failed tocatch, for she mused on:

"Though I know that coast over there is practically uninhabited italways gives me a feeling of being closer to people when I can seeit--and a sense of delightful unknown things lying just there beyondthe range. " She paused as if contemplating some illusive thought. 

Harlan, looking at her profile, became aware that her chin, while of anengaging firmness, had that impalpably soft texture that suggests thepowdered wing of a creamy butterfly. He was surprised that he hadnever noticed it before. The tam slanted obligingly to the other sideand left exposed the lobe of a small ear that was as rosy in tint asthe delicate tiny clam shells he occasionally marveled at on the beach. The curve at the back of her neck had the look that invites kisses in avery little girl who has her curls knotted up on the top of herhead. . . . He found mining a distinctly agreeable occupation. 

"You are like a soft, cool breeze from the sea, after a hot day in thecity, " he was astonished to find himself saying. But his statement waslost in a verbal explosion from the enraged Lollie. 

"Gosh darn it! _Nobody_ 'll notice _me_!" The little fellow waslooking up at Jean with petulant indignation. "I'm going to findKobuk!"

He flung his pail to the sand as if casting all thought of fickle womanfrom him and ran off down the beach toward the cabin, deigning not tohear Jean as she called to him. 

"The poor little man!" The girl's voice was sympathetic as she lookedafter the flying figure of her nephew. "I know he must feel lonelysometimes with no one of his own age to play with. "

"It's a feeling he shares, then, with some of us older ones. "

Jean glanced at Harlan quickly. "Then why--" she began, and checkedherself. 

She wanted to ask him why, if this were so, he had buried himself inthe isolated post of Katleean. She wanted to know why he, young, educated, brave, with the world of opportunity before him had immersedhimself in the lazy, dreamy life of an Alaskan trading post. Was he ofthe stuff that Silvertip was made--Silvertip who was content to do oddbits of work for the White Chief at Katleean, for which he took his payin tobacco or some other luxury necessary to his own comfort, while theenergetic Senott kept his house, gathered and chopped his wood, saltedfish, canned berries, dried clams and put down sea-gulls eggs in saltfor the winter? Was this good-looking young creature a squaw-man atheart, if not in reality. 

A squaw-man! She was intensely interested in those strange members ofthe white race who go native. She had not the contempt for them thatEllen felt. She had only a kindly desire to understand their point ofview. In a way she could account for the White Chief. Katleean washis wilderness kingdom where he ruled white and native alike by sheerstrength of arm and will. Silvertip, ignorant, lazy, weak, she couldalso understand vaguely. But there were others. She recalled a day onthe beach at the trading-post when she had met a tall, blond man. Hewas sitting on the edge of his canoe nonchalantly smoking a cigarette, while his Indian wife and four little half-breed children dug clams afew feet away. One minute he had talked to her of the effect oncharacter of the geographical aspect of the country, sprinkling hisremarks with "Schopenhauer maintains" and "Nietzsche says. " In thenext breath he had informed her proudly that he and his children wereof the eagle totem--claiming it by reason of his Thlinget wife's clan. 

The incident remained vivid in her mind, setting up never ceasingqueries of "Why?" "How?" Neither Ellen or Shane encouraged herattempts to discuss these conditions. . . . 

Jean's thoughts wandered on. It occurred to her that Ellen seemed tobe changing, too. There was not the old freedom of speech between themthat had always existed prior to their coming to Kon Klayu. Perhaps itwas her own fault, for lately, especially since the day at the bluff, she had resented Ellen's attitude toward herself and Gregg Harlan. There were many things she wished she might talk over with the youngman. Her interest in squaw-men, for instance--but of course that wouldbe impossible, she reminded herself. She had nearly forgotten--therehad been that Indian girl, Naleenah. 

As if in answer to her unspoken thought, Harlan turned to herimpulsively. 

"There's something I want to tell you, Miss Wiley, about--about thatlittle Indian girl--" He stopped, his tanned face flushing. It was asif he had no words to express himself in terms that she wouldunderstand. "You see I--I----"

"Ahoy, there, Gregg! Jean! A ship! Look, it must be the _Hoonah_!"Boreland's joyous call broke in on them. He had run down from his ownrocker and was pointing far out where the sunlight fell on the sails ofa vessel heading directly for the Island of Kon Klayu. It was thefirst sail sighted since the schooner went away. 

"Hurrah boy! She's coming with the provisions!" Boreland tossed hiscap into the air. "Jean, run down to the cabin and tell Ellen theglorious news!"

The girl looked at the approaching ship a moment. Happy as she was atthe sight she could not help wishing that Boreland had discovered it afew minutes later. She leaned toward Harlan. 

"Tell me some other time, " she said softly, and with a word to Shanestarted for the cabin. 

She found Ellen, who never threw anything away that might later be usedfor food, rolling some hard, sea-soaked lumps of flour beneath therolling-pin trying to crush them fine enough to use. 

"O, angel child, you won't have to save that stuff now!" Jean shouted, bursting in upon her. "The _Hoonah's_ coming! We sighted her!" Shecaught Ellen about the waist and whirled her madly over the floor, releasing her suddenly to dash out the door with a "Come on, sis!"

The two arrived breathless on the point of the bluff from whence theship was visible, and whence the men had gathered. Jean began eagerlypointing out the sail, but even as she did so, she faltered. Sheturned and caught the sickening look of disappointment on the facesabout her. A thin line of smoke was now trailing out behind thevessel. It was not the _Hoonah_, but a steamer. Also it had swervedin its course and now, broadside to the Island, it was headed south. 

"O-o-o!" With a world of hopelessness in her voice Jean uttered thesound and threw her arm about Ellen's waist. Together they watched thedeparting vessel with that desperation of heart that hopes, even whilethe brain knows there is no hope. A quarter of an hour passed, but theship did not change its course. 

They turned from the sea to find that the men had begun to gather upthe tools and the clean-up from the sand. 

"It's a cannery steamer, El, with the sail up, going to the States forthe winter, " Boreland said, dully. "The salmon run is over. "

Ellen was not listening. She had taken her eyes from the fastvanishing steamer and was looking anxiously down the empty beach towardthe far away rockers. 

"Shane . . . Shane . . . " she faltered now. There was a queer, frightened tone in her voice that sent a chill to the hearts of herlisteners. "Where is Lollie?"

Boreland wheeled about. 

"Why, he went home to you two hours ago, El! Haven't you seen him?"

"No!" Ellen's alarmed gaze sought his. Forgotten was the ship, thegold, the people about them; forgotten was everything else in the worldbut the soul-gripping parental fear they saw reflected in each other'sface. 

"The grizzly!" The mother's white lips whispered the words the fatherdared not utter. "O, Shane, come! Quick! We must find him!"

CHAPTER XXI

KOBUK

Boreland and Kayak Bill searched the beach below the cabin forfootprints while Harlan took the trail across the Island toward hisHut. Ellen and her sister hoping that the boy had returned duringtheir absence, ran home to look into every nook and corner. . . . Thesilence drove them once more into the open. 

Ellen, her throat tightening with unshed tears, stood on the porch andcalled:

"L-o-l-l-i-e! . . . S-o-n!"

The only answer was the mocking cry of a gull floating high in thesunlight. . . . 

Boreland came hurriedly up the trail from the beach. 

"There are no tracks in the sand toward Sunset Point, El, but Kayak isgoing along Skeleton Rib toward the cliffs. "

At the stricken look in the mother's face, Jean turned quickly to herbrother-in-law. 

"He must have found Kobuk and gone off adventuring again, Shane. . . . But he can't have gone far with the dog so crippled. Perhaps he'spicking flowers, " she suggested hopefully. 

Ellen had started down toward the dilapidated hut where Loll hadsurprised the swallows on his first morning exploration. Lying on thedoorsill she found some fragrant spikes of late-blooming orchis tiedwith a grass blade. Calling to the others she picked up the flowers. Boreland answered her with a gesture and after running back into thecabin for his rifle, followed. 

"He loved the yellow flowers best, Jean, " Ellen said thoughtfully. "Perhaps he has gone to the gulch where they grow thickest. "

Toward the steep depression in the hillside some two hundred yardsdistant the coarse grass of the tundra was flattened in spots as ifsomething had passed that way. The women seized upon this clue andeagerly followed the signs. 

Where the land sloped upward toward the hill they came upon a grave. It was old, so old that the Greek cross at the head was moss-grown, broken and decayed. Once before Ellen and her son had stood there, touched with the gentle speculative melancholy that a wilderness gravealways brings. Before leaving they had placed a cluster of flowersupon it in memory of the bold Russian sailor of long ago, whose bodylay beneath. Now there was a fresh bunch of blossoms at the foot ofthe cross. . . . At the sight of them quick, hot tears welled up inEllen's eyes. It hurt her to remember Loll's quaint way of talking tothe flowers he had picked. 

Boreland, rifle in hand, overtook them just as they entered the gullythat ran upward to the flat top of the Island. 

During the rainy season the gulch undoubtedly cradled a small stream ofwater but now it was only slightly damp, and on each side, untouchedyet by frost, grew a golden profusion of flowers. Here and therefreshly broken stems indicated that Ellen had not been amiss in hersurmise as to the boy's route. 

Halfway up they came upon Loll's cap swinging from a dried celeryblossom. With a cry Ellen caught at it and clasped it to her breastwhile she called his name again and again. Jean joined her; thenBoreland took up the name. . . . 

There was no answer. 

When the voices died away at last it seemed strangely, ominously stillin the sunny, flower-scented hollow. . . . With a sickening fear thatshe might never hear her boy's call again Ellen continued to standstraining her ears for the sound of it. On either side of her a wallof yellow bloom arose, shutting her in. A breath of air stirred thefragrance of it, --clean, sweet. Suddenly, on its scent, there flashedbefore her baby-pictures from the realm of her mother-memories--Loll, curly-headed, grey-eyed and laughing, holding out chubby arms as hetook his first unsteady steps; Loll's plump, diminutive legs, dancing"tippy-toe" with comical baby joyousness before he would consent to bebuttoned into his nightie; Loll asleep, his little tousled head on thepillow beside that of "Shut-eye" an absurd and dilapidated doll dear tohis infant heart. . . . And once, when she had impatiently slapped hisfat little hand as it closed on a forbidden object, Loll's baby facelooking up at her with hurt, astonished eyes and quivering chin. . . . This last bought stabbed her with poignant regret wounding her heartwith such anguish and self-reproach and longing that she burst intosobs as she climbed blindly to the top of the gulch. 

On the crest of the hill all three stopped for a moment, out of breathfrom the steep ascent. 

Spread out like a vast beautiful meadow the top of the Island lay flatas the palm of a hand. The tundra, softly green and brown, wassplashed with the yellow and rose and purple of late-blooming wildflowers. Small brown pools of water bordered with moss were sunk hereand there. To the north and east not a tree or bush broke the levelbut southward the tundra rose gently toward the top of the cliffs amile or more away, where the air was thick with seabirds. A narrowpath, suggestive of heavy padded feet, ran from north to south alongthe edge of the hill. 

Despite this gentleness, this softness of contour characteristic of thetundra meadows of the North, there was a feeling of wind-swept spaces. The air was exquisitely pure. Jean, looking about her, involuntarilydrew a deep, long breath. Midway between her and the edge of thedistant cliffs stood the one lone tree of Kon Klayu--a small gnarledspruce, its branches all growing from one side of the trunk, bearingmute testimony to the velocity of the prevailing gales. There wasabout this tree an air of almost human loneliness and--waiting. On thebrow of the hill it faced the sea like a woman with long, wind-blownhair. Near it rose a dome-shaped mound like an Eskimo hut in form butmany times larger. 

As the girl's eyes followed the trail south she suddenly became awareof a small, slowly-moving object, . . . Then another. 

"Oh, Ellen!" There was glad relief in her voice. "_There_ he is!There they are--Loll and Kobuk! See! Their heads are bobbing justabove the grass toward the tree!"

At the first exclamation Boreland had started hurriedly along thetrail. The two women followed him calling to the boy as they ran. ButLoll, evidently deeply interested in his own small adventures, did nothear their shouts. Kobuk was now hobbling on ahead and despite hisbandaged leg, was tacking hither and thither woofing in the manner ofthe huskie when he wishes to bark. As Loll neared the tree they sawhim branch off the trail and a few minutes later disappear around thehummock. 

But Kobuk did not follow. 

With short staccato woofs he was limping forward toward the crest ofthe hill and back again. There was a strange note in the sound. Presently he stood still, his long nose raised, wolf-like, as if tocatch a scent. 

At this point Boreland stopped in the trail. 

"El, " he said hurriedly, "you and Jean stay right here. I'm going tomake a short-cut to the hummock. I'll bring Loll back. Mind what Itell you, _stay_ here!"

He started swiftly across the deceptively smooth-looking tundra, hisface drawn and ashen. While Jean watched him, he slipped his rifle tothe hollow of his arm. The movement brought the thought of the bear tothe girl. Her heart thumped against her side. She glanced at Ellen, but her sister was standing with hand-shaded eyes following theprogress of Shane who had covered nearly half the distance to themound. Jean turned again to the crest of the hill where Kobuk hadbeen. He was hobbling toward her. Even as she looked the dog stopped, glanced behind him, then stiffened, every hair along his neckbristling. He stood as if sniffing the wind which was blowing towardher. Then he came on. 

"Kobuk, what's the matter, Kobuk----"

The girl broke off with a gasp of terror. In a fascination of frighther gaze became fastened on a spot beyond the advancing Kobuk. 

Out of the bushes that crowned the edge of the hill a great, hairy headwas slowly rising. Followed the massive arches of shoulders, the wholepowerful body. An instant later the vast bulk of a Kodiak bear, withlow-hung swinging head, was outlined against the growth behind. Amoment it stood, looming huge, brown, fearful--the most dangerous beastthat roams the Alaskan wilderness. Then deliberately it came to itshaunches, its immense paws dangling in front, its monstrous head andneck turning from side to side. . . . Dropping to earth again itslouched heavily in the direction of the hummock where Lollie haddisappeared. 

Jean turned swiftly to see if Boreland were aware of the proximity ofthe creature, now making for the opening to its den on the other sideof the mound--a den which Loll no doubt was at that moment exploring. Her brother-in-law was preparing to spring across one of the littlebrown pools. . . . Then, to her despair, he stumbled, and one leg wentdown in the soft muck of the farther edge. As he fell, he tried tothrow his rifle to the bank, but the heavy, metal-stayed butt jammedagainst his hand. 

Jean held her breath. For a long moment he did not move. Had hebroken his leg? Had he--? She sobbed with relief. He was beginningto struggle out; but, even in her excitement, she noticed that he didnot use his right hand. It hung limply from the wrist. 

Ellen must have seen the beast as soon as Jean for as her husband fellshe was dashing away across the tundra to him. Jean's mind wrestledwith the situation. With his right hand useless, Boreland, good shotthough he was, could never send the single bullet that must kill thegrizzly. They could risk no fight at close range with a wounded andinfuriated Kodiak bear. Jean remembered her sister's unusual skill attarget practice on the _Hoonah_. Jean herself was a good shot butEllen could, unfailing, hit a bull's eye at twenty paces, though shecould never be persuaded to shoot at a living thing. Would she havethe courage, the coolness, to face the monster in that critical momentwhich meant life or death to her son? Would she _be_ in _time_?

Now the bear had traversed more than half the distance to the hummockand was still lumbering along. She must stop him, must at least delayhim--she and Kobuk--so that Ellen might reach the other side of themound before him. 

She ran to meet the dog. Snatches of hunting tales Kayak Bill had toldcame to her--tales of northern huskies hamstringing wild beasts. Shedid not know what the term meant, but Kobuk could do it. Kobuk, thepowerful, the swift, the beautiful. . . . Then she remembered--Kobuk'sright foreleg was crippled and still tightly bandaged. . . . Kobukcrippled stood no chance against a Kodiak bear!

She came up to him. At her approach, as though reinforced by herpresence, the dog turned clumsily on three legs to face the beast. Low, savage growls issued from his throat. His lips curled away fromhis sharp fangs; spasms serrulated his nose; the hair along his spinerose and fell. 

Jean patted his side. Sick at heart she urged him forward. Shepointed desperately to the monster. 

"Mush, Kobuk! Sick 'im, old boy!" She forced enthusiasm into hertones. "Go head him off!"

The dog limped a few feet. He looked back at her, his ferocious looksoftened. His crippled leg hung useless. He raised clear, questioningeyes to her face. 

"Oh, Kobuk, darling, I know--I _know_--" the girl's voice broke. Sheknelt and threw her arms about him. "But you must do _something_!Kobuk, you must!" She pleaded with him as if he were human. 

Once more the dog looked at her, his dark, intelligent eyes fearful andsad. He gave a half-hearted little woof, shifted on his three legs andrested his head a moment against her knee. 

She sprang up and ran a short distance ahead of him. Again she pointedto the bear. 

"Mush, Kobuk! Oh, go after him, boy!"

He started. Once more his hair bristled ferociously. Then suddenly, to Jean's dismay, he turned and instead of heading the bear off, beganto make a detour behind it. Forgetful of all else but the necessity ofdelaying the beast, she ran after the dog shouting encouragement. 

As he left her behind he gathered speed. He swerved, making straightfor the back of the bear. His woofing sounds had ceased now. He wasgrimly silent. The instincts of his wolf ancestors at the sight ofquarry must have awakened in his heart making him forget his bodilypain, for as he sped on in his desire to maim and kill, he put hisbandaged leg to the ground with increasing frequency. By the time hereached the animal, gone was the friendly, gentle Kobuk Jean had alwaysknown. In his place rushed a new and terrible Kobuk--a snarling, leaping devil-dog, with blazing eyes, white fangs gleaming in adripping mouth, little ears laid back against a lean, wolf-like head. 

He attacked the bear from behind, nipping it slightly. The huge beaststopped and whirled in clumsy astonishment. For a moment it lookedalmost curiously at the white-fanged fury leaping away. Then turninglumbered on again toward the mound. The monster had lived so long onKon Klayu undisturbed by man or beast that it was apparentlyindifferent to both. 

But Kobuk, cripple though he was, would not be ignored. Again hedashed at the bear, seeking to nip it from the rear. Again heretreated. Repeating his maneuvers he kept on, until suddenly Jean sawthe beast whirl viciously. Its cumbersome bulk stiffened, its littleeyes gleamed with rage. It rose on its hind feet, its monster headswaying from side to side. Then the girl stopped, horrified, dazed atthe unequal battle that ensued. 

She had a confused memory of a huge upstanding creature laying about itlike a fiend with great furry arms. She saw her dog, crippled, butdauntless, ever dodging, wheeling, leaping, circling and attacking frombehind the moment the bear's back was toward him. She saw Kobuk catchglancing blows from the mighty claw-barbed paws and roll five feet, tenfeet. She saw him battered, bleeding, panting, struggling to his feetagain and again to renew his losing fight. Backward and forward overthe tundra they fought, swiftly, savagely, yet despite it all evernearing the mound. Then all in a moment--they disappeared around theedge of the hummock. To the girl it was as if the earth had swallowedthem. She stood for a moment bewildered. But remembering, she turnedto where she had last seen Ellen and Shane. Her sister was not insight, but Boreland was limping around the opposite end of the mound. He carried no gun. Then he, too, disappeared. . . . A second later ashot rang out--then another. After that was silence. 

The sound of the rifle galvanized the girl into action. With wildlythumping heart she sped toward the scene of the shooting, dreading whatshe might find there. Rounding the hummock she stopped, staring at thescene before her. 

A few feet from the cave-like opening in the hillock, lay the greatbear dead, but with limbs still twitching. It had been shot fairlythrough the shoulder and into the heart. Ellen, the rifle at her feet, stood sobbing against her husband's breast. His sound hand patted herback mechanically, but his eyes were fixed on something beyond. 

Jean's followed them. 

Loll was sitting flat on the ground beside the prostrate body of Kobuk, holding the dog's head on his knees. Kobuk's great dark eyes, swimmingin tears of pain, were raised to the child's face, in a look so sad, and withal so full of love that Jean started forward, a cry breakingfrom her heart. From shoulder to thigh the dog was a bleeding horrorwhere one whole side of his faithful body had been raked by the ironclaws of the bear. 

"Oh, my Kobuk! My dear doggie!" The little boy sobbed and laid hischeek against Kobuk's head. 

The dog moved slightly, and his pink tongue went out weakly to lick hissmall comrade's face. 

"I won't let him hurt you no more now, Kobuk, " crooned Lollie, protectingly. 

Jean sank on her knees beside him. 

"Kobuk--dear old--Kobuk--" she murmured brokenly, stroking a limp, hotpaw. 

The dog's dimming senses must have caught the sound of his name, forhis tail moved feebly as if, with the last beat of his brave heart hewas trying to wag goodbye. . . . He lifted his head, . . . A shudderpassed through him. Then he lay still, his wide, glazing eyes fixed onthe little boy's face. 

Jean buried her head in her arms oblivious to everything but the wildgrief that shook her. But Lollie, not realizing that Kobuk was dead, sat patting the relaxed bandaged leg, while he whispered childish wordsof comfort in the unheeding ears. 

CHAPTER XXII

AT THE LONE TREE

That evening they buried Kobuk on the brow of the hill near the lonetree of Kon Klayu. 

At sunset time Loll sat by himself on the cabin steps. His chin was inhis hand and his wide, grey eyes were fixed on the clear rose of thewestern sky. It was the first time that death had come near to him andthe mystery and loneliness of it filled him with strange, new thoughts. 

For a long time he looked into the fading glow. Then he shook his headslowly, reproachfully. 

"God, " he said, in the uncanny way he had of seeming to converse withDeity. "God, how can you smile so, when my Kobuk is dead?"

The purple dust of twilight sifted down on land and sea, . . . Atlast, awed by the unanswerable mystery of life and death, the littlequestioner turned in to the cabin, where his mother sat sewing in thesoft, yellow light of the shaded lamp. . . . 

Breakfast the next morning was an event. Harlan had accepted Ellen'sinvitation to be present, and as he entered the cabin, the air waspermeated with the delicious smell of frying steak. With the exceptionof ducks the party had eaten no fresh meat for a month before coming tothe Island, and the recent daily breakfasts of musty oatmeal andhotcakes was becoming monotonous. Despite the tragedy of Kobuk, it wasa grateful family that gathered about the big platter of bear meat andsteaming cups of black coffee. 

"This ought to tide us over nicely until the _Hoonah_ comes, " saidBoreland helping himself to another piece. "A fine breakfast, El!Upon my word, it couldn't be better if we were in the States. . . . Still--I'd like a bit of butter--real, honest-to-God cow's butter--onmy hotcakes!"

"Wall, " mumbled Kayak with his mouth full of steak. "Sugar and likesweetenin' hits me where I live. I used to think if they took away mysugar I'd just as lief die. But now that there ain't any, I'mscratchin' along tolerable wall. But--I'd give my hat for somethin'tasty to smear on these here sourdoughs!"

"Go on with you, Kayak! With El's sourdoughs you don't needsweetening. " Boreland laughed. "We can use bear fat instead of butternow, for that old devil certainly was fat. We'll try some of it out. Of course we won't need much, for the schooner will be in any day now. We'll smoke part of it and put the rest down in salt. " He leaned backin his chair and drew contentedly on his pipe. 

"By h-hen, a smoke does taste mighty good after high-toned grub likethis, " drawled Kayak, surrounding himself with a cloud. 

"You men smoke too much, " Ellen broke in. "Sometimes I'm convincedthat pipes bear the same relation to men that pacifiers do to babies. At the rate you three are going, you'll be out of tobacco in no time. If the _Hoonah_ doesn't----"

"Holy mackinaw, El! You're eternally seeing the hole in the doughnutlately!" her husband interrupted somewhat testily. "Of course she willbe along right away. No man would leave us on this island long withoutprovisions. It wouldn't be human. And about smoking"--he waved anairy hand--"why I can quit any time I want to and never miss it. "

"Same here. " Kayak puffed out another tobacco-scented cloud. "I'lltell a man no measly habit ever got a strangle holt on me. "

Harlan said nothing. 

After breakfast the clean-up from the rockers was panned and freed fromsand. Boreland weighed the dust in the new gold scales. 

"Four ounces, " he announced, as they balanced. "That ought to bring usabout sixty dollars. Not bad for one day's work. If we can only findenough of that sand we'll make a stake here, boys. Gad, I wish the_Hoonah_ would get here so we could establish ourselves permanently. "Boreland had been trying to induce Kayak to remain with him on theIsland. 

The remainder of the day was spent in getting the bear meat to thecabin and preparing it for preservation. The Indian hut where Loll hadsurprised the swallows was cleaned out and fitted up as a smoke house. Harlan cut and brought in several back-loads of alder to furnishhard-wood smoke to cure the meat. The women were busy indoors tryingout the fat. 

After the fire in the smoke-house had been going some time, Kayak Billsauntered in with a can full of ashes. 

"These here's hard-wood ashes, Lady, " he told Ellen. "We ain't got nowhite man's antiseptic medicine now, and I reckon we better make someo' the Injine kind. Put warm water on these and let 'em standovernight. You'll have an antiseptic then that'll be a ringtailedwonder, Lady. "

As they worked about the house that morning Ellen and Jean discussedthe shooting of the bear. It was the sight of the monster tearing herdog from shoulder to thigh that had calmed Ellen. Her fear wasswallowed up in a gripping desire for revenge that made it possible forher to take careful aim and fire. Jean knew that Ellen had experiencednone of the thrills that come to the hunter of big game. She was adomestic woman, a home maker, thrown by circumstances into situationswhere she was forced to do things she never dreamed she coulddo--things she shuddered over afterward. Even as she told of theincident it seemed to both women like a tragic and terrible dream--adream whose influence would not leave them. 

On this day the sisters were heartily sick of life on the Island of KonKlayu. 

Jean's depression continued all day long. The thought of Kobuk neverleft her. She found herself recalling his friendly, wagging ways; thefeel of his muzzle nosing her hand; his soft eyes looking up at herfrom attentive, side-turned head. She found herself regretting thatKobuk was not there to share the fresh meat with them. 

Several times during the day she stopped in her work to lift her head, listening. She kept fancying she heard Kobuk's husky woofing. Onceshe went to the door and looked out to convince herself that he was notthere. Down at the smoke-house Lollie, whom she had expected to beloudly inconsolable at the death of the dog, was helping the men. Hehad his old revolver tied to his waist and was shouting lustily. Jeanfelt a pang of disappointment in her nephew. She would have had himcome to her and talk of the dog. Womanlike, she wanted to comfort himfor the loss and in so doing ease her own grief. Kobuk had been herdog and Loll's. 

She stepped back into the living-room. 

"I suppose it's the nature of the male to forget quickly, " she said. 

"Forget what?" Ellen asked, the word "male" causing her mind to fly atonce to Harlan. 

"Oh--nothing. "

While the girl was doing up the supper dishes she heard Loll gowhistling down the trail. When she had finished she took her violinfrom its case and stepped out on the porch. Kayak and Boreland wereengaged in a close game of double solitaire. Ellen, with a headache, was lying down in Lollie's bunk. Harlan had gone across the Island tohis Hut. It was very lonely. 

She put down her violin. 

"I'm going for a walk, Shane, " she called through the open door. 

Down past the smoke-house and the Russian sailor's grave she went; thenup the gulch that led to the top of the hill. There were no animals tobe afraid of now. 

On the crest she turned her back on the flat lonesomeness of the tundraand looked down on the wide expanse of ocean spread below. The day wasdying in soft flushes of amber and rose and lavender. Life on KonKlayu was hard, but she never tired of the soothing beauty of itsnights. 

Her eyes followed the trail to the solitary tree facing the sea like awaiting woman with long, wind-blown hair. In the fading light itshuman aspect brought a sense of comfort to the girl. It made Kobuk'sgrave seem less lonely. She wished Loll were with her, she would gothen and see how the men had left him. Poor Kobuk, with his dear, friendly ways! Everyone but her seemed to have forgotten himtoday--even Loll. Suddenly she decided she would go by herself. 

She was startled by the sound of a step behind her. Glancing over hershoulder she saw Gregg Harlan coming from the north along the beartrail that skirted the bushes at the edge of the hill. She waited forhim. 

"I was headed for there, too, " he said simply, indicating the tree downthe trail. 

They walked silently in single file along the narrow path. Thesweetness of a long sunny day came up from the grass that brushedJean's skirts. For many minutes the new mound they were approachingwas screened by the tall growth, but when they saw it, Jean stoppedabruptly, her finger on her lips. From the grave came to them amuffled sound. 

Loll was there before them. 

The little fellow, oblivious to everything but his loneliness and hisloss, lay across the fresh turned earth. His bare head was buried inhis outflung arms. One hand fiercely clutched a few bruised flowersand his small body shook with long, slow sobs. 

Jean's throat tightened and tears of sympathy flooded her eyes. Withoutstretched arms she started impulsively forward to comfort him, butbefore she had taken a second step Harlan laid a detaining hand on herarm. 

"Not now, " he whispered. "Come. "

He drew back along the trail. Wondering, she followed until they wereout of earshot. 

"We'll wait for him here at the top of the gulch, Jean. " It was thefirst time he had called her that. Each was aware of a sudden, warmingsense of comradeship--a sense of sharing something tender, sad. 

They sat down on the crest of the hill, so close that only a singletundra daisy nodded between them in the deepening twilight. 

"Why--why did you do that, Gregg?"

He did not answer at once. . . . Up from the sea came the susurrousvoice of the reef whispering its eternal questions. 

"Because--men, real men, bear their griefs silently, and alone, " hesaid at last. "It is their way. "

Jean thought of the little fellow, so childish in many ways, but silentall day on the subject of his loss. He had gone to cry out his grief, unseen, on Kobuk's grave. . . . Suddenly she loved him with atenderness she had never known before, but . . . With it came a newloneliness. It was as if already his boyish hand and shut her, awoman, from that place in his heart that only men might know andunderstand. 

She rested her elbows on her knees and cupped her chin in her hands. 

"Oh--o--o, " she said, reflectively. "I did not know. I did not dream. . . Men were like that. " . . . The hearts of men . . . It wasstrangely sweet to know what lay hidden in the hearts of men. 

The faint, disembodied cry of a seabird keened across the dusk. Formless waters stretched away into the wide, beckoning dimness. Thetwilight wind was pungent with the strange awakening smell of the sea. Forgotten now was the depression of the day; it had no place in theromance, the mystery, the promise of the northern night. She becamesuddenly conscious that there was something sublimely beautiful in lifethat she had never yet experienced, something that unknowingly she hadbeen waiting for; something that must come to her at last. . . . Shewondered if the young man sitting so close to her were ever stirred bysuch rapturous, intangible thoughts. With quickened interest sheturned to look at him, and met his deep eyes intent on her face. 

Somewhat confused, he snapped off the head of the daisy between them. 

"I--I was just wondering what you were thinking about, Jean. "

"I was thinking about you, " she answered candidly. "I waswondering----"

There came the sound of little running feet on the trail near them, andthe girl rose hastily, calling Loll's name. 

"Don't be afraid, honey. It's I--Jean!"

Breathless but relieved at the sight of them, the boy joined them andthe three went slowly down the gulch toward the cabin. 

Before the porch Harlan stopped. 

"No, I won't go in now, " he said in answer to her question. 

They stood a moment, a sudden shy silence falling upon them. . . . 

"Good-night, Jean. " Slim and tall, he stood looking down at herholding out his hand. Hers went out to meet it and the pressure of hisstrong, slender fingers sent a thrill to her heart. She was stirred bythe magic of his nearness. 

"Good . . . Night, " she whispered wonderingly. She longed to lingerthere in the dusk with him, but--because of her desire--she turned andran up the steps to the cabin. . . . 

Ten minutes later she stood in the twilight on the bank below thecabin. The sea, the night, the world seemed to hold out loving arms toher. A feeling tremulously new and enchanting had come to her. . . . She tucked her violin beneath her chin and drew her bow softly acrossthe strings. This night she could play as she had never played before. This night she must play. 

The music floated up through the dusk with dreamy, questioningsweetness. . . . Time slipped by. . . . At last she drifted into thenotes of her good-night. She felt that there was a special tendernessin the chords from her long-drawn singing bow tonight. Lost in theharmony of her own creating she hardly knew when the voice--his voicefrom the hilltop, took up the strain. So softly was it done that shewas unsurprised. The words came down to her now clear, mellow, thrillingly masculine, and--did she only imagine there was somethingpersonal in them?

 "In the West Sable night lulls the day on her breast. Sweet, good-night! . . . Love, good-night!"

CHAPTER XXIII

ELLEN

The days passed. They were growing noticeably shorter now and provisionswere getting low. The trail up the steep hillside behind the cabinbecame hardened by the feet of the watchers alert for the hourly expectedarrival of the _Hoonah_. At the top which they all had come to call theLookout, every hour of the day found some one of the party anxiouslyscanning the ocean toward Katleean. 

Many cannery steamers and whalers on their way south were sighted, butall gave the Island a wide berth. The hundred reefs of Kon Klayu had nolure for sailors of the North Pacific. 

Boreland, who never failed to patrol the beach daily, found one morepatch of ruby sand, which the three men rocked out. He weighed the goldafter the clean-up. 

"This sand is richer than the other batch, El!" he exclaimedenthusiastically. 

For a moment Ellen eyed the yellow gleam of the dust without interest, then she leaned over and dipped her fingers into the golden flakes, letting them fall slowly back into the scales. 

"Shane, Shane"--she turned away and patted his arm maternally--"you arelike a little boy playing with wooden money. " What value had gold on theIsland of Kon Klayu, she thought, where it could not buy an ounce of food?

To Ellen Boreland these were days of anguished conjecture, of harassedindecision. As they passed with no sign of the _Hoonah_ she began torecall her last week at Katleean. On the screen of her mind appearedover and over again the White Chief's dark face, in her ears the voice ofmemory repeated his softly-spoken, enigmatic words: "Remember . . . You'll want me. . . . The pigeon loose, comes back . . . I willunderstand. "

The _Hoonah_ was overdue. . . . Was this then what he had meant? Was henow holding the schooner believing that in her anxiety for the safety ofher loved ones she would release the bird? Was he trying to force her, at such a cost, to buy from him the lives of those dear to her? . . . Had he planned this thing from the beginning? Was he even now at thepost waiting--certain that eventually she must release the pigeon? Thepicture unnerved her to the point of panic. And yet she tried toreassure herself. No man, however cruel and pitiless, could deliberatelyplan so monstrous a thing. She tried to find excuses for the non-arrivalof the _Hoonah_. . . . Perhaps the fall steamer had not come in ontime. . . . Perhaps some accident had happened and the White Chief washaving the schooner repaired. Surely he would come, if only to ascertainthe fate of his bookkeeper for whose safety Silvertip must account. ButSilvertip--had the Swede told the truth? Might he not have said thatyoung Harlan had preferred to stay behind and had been safely landed withthe party? Then it occurred to her with a fearful knowledge that to theWhite Chief of Katleean the life of a man meant nothing. 

While she went about her household duties there came to her again andagain the sound of the white trader's sardonic: "I have presented your_son_ with a pigeon. " Not to her, nor to Jean had he given the bird, butdeliberately he had made a present of it to her little boy that Lollmight innocently love and care for the thing designed to be the symbol ofhis mother's shame!

To her harassed mind the bird came to have a hideous vitality. There wassomething uncanny in the way it thrived in its captivity--as though itfed on her distress. And almost like a conspiracy was the determinationof her loved ones to preserve it. Loll was devoted to it, especially nowsince the death of Kobuk; it was his only playmate. Shane wasparticularly zealous in his care of it, exercising the bird by means of along string, since Loll would permit no one to clip its wings. EvenKayak Bill was always bringing it green stuff to supplement its diet ofrolled oats. Only Jean appeared indifferent to the bird--Jean, alwaystender of dumb things. She had remarked, once, that it's smoke-greycolor reminded her unpleasantly of the eyes of the White Chief. 

Sometimes, in a kind of fury, Ellen wondered if the pigeon bore a charmedlife--if it _could_ not die! Dead, her problem would be solved forher. . . . Yet she dared not let it die. . . Not while there was achance--! Standing before the cage day after day, Ellen would tormentherself with a thought. If she should leave the door unlatched, so thatit would jar open . . . If, of its own accord, the bird should fly away!Then, when the White Chief came she could disclaim all knowledge of itsgoing. . . . But there was the lock of her hair, about which she hadlied to her husband. It was still in possession of the trader who, secure in his power over everyone in his wilderness kingdom, was capableof any melodramatic folly, of any false tale. And Shane, hot-headed, protective--she shuddered. In her overwrought imagination she saw herhusband's hands stained with another man's blood. . . . No, the bird wasa kind of _thing_ fastened upon her which she could not, must not in allconscience lose. 

Torn by these conflicting emotions and sick with foreboding, she wouldturn away from the cage. Tomorrow--she would wait until tomorrow. Perhaps the Hoonah would come tomorrow. Perhaps it was even in sightnow! With hope and longing so intense that it bordered on despair shewould leave the cabin and climb to the Lookout to scan the empty sea. 

One sunny afternoon she was standing there alone watching a dark streakof steamer-smoke move slowly southward. Below her, stretching away tothe wide horizon lay the sea, its great, smooth swells heaving jade-greenin the sunlight. Autumn color lay over the tundra moss, the rice-grass, the short alder bushes. Autumn, a soothing autumn was in the air, promising the northern world of growing things a long, snow-enfoldedpeace; but herself and her little family--what?

For some time she had half-consciously been aware of a strange encirclinghush. She looked about her and realized that nowhere was a seabird ofany kind. Then far out, a dark mass like a fallen cloud, challenged herattention. Even as she wondered it rose into the air and began toadvance swiftly toward her, . . . It resolved itself into thousands ofsmall black birds. 

"The sea-parrots!" Ellen spoke aloud in her surprise. "They must begoing south. " She had not known that this would happen. She felt a dullregret that it should be so. 

With crimson beaks pointed south they came nearer and nearer, until, flying directly overhead, they cast a shadow as if a cloud had passedover the sun. The sky was black with them. Noiseless on the wing, therewas something ominous in the sea-parrot's silence during the quarter ofan hour in which they flew steadfastly over the island on their course. Ellen watched them with an interest divided between wonder and awe. 

Before they had passed an increasing wild chorus came to her ears. Sheturned to face the north again where another cloud--grey-white--wascoming. She knew it to be composed of her noisiest neighbors, the gulls, bound also for southern shores. 

Over the island these birds sailed with gay squawkings, their wide wingsseeming to wave a contemptuous good-bye. It was as if they scorned, yetpitied the human creature below who must stay behind because she had nowings to bear her away. 

The last call dimmed and died. Despite the lazy swash of the swells onthe beach below the sunny afternoon was heavy with silence. Ellen's eyesswept the vast circle of the distance. The smoke of the south-boundsteamer was no more. Far down the tundra toward the cliffs stood the onelone tree of Kon Klayu facing the sea like a waiting woman with long, wind-blown hair. . . . An appalling sense of loneliness flooded Ellen. A sudden, overwhelming need for human companionship swept her. . . . Sheturned hastily into the trail that led down to the cabin--then checkedherself, as the sound of some one whistling came to her. She glancedback. 

Walking briskly toward her along the tundra trail that led from his Hutto the Lookout came Gregg Harlan. He must recently have borrowed Shane'srazor, for the soft, dark beard that had shadowed his face was gone. Bareheaded, he advanced swingingly, vigorously, his chin up, his wholefigure the personification of youth, confidence, and a new strength. Forthe first time Ellen was glad to see him. 

As she waited for him to approach she studied him with interest. He hadchanged much since his landing on Kon Klayu. Under the rigors ofhardship, of physical labor, of abstinence, he had developed a clean-cutmasculinity that was strangely reassuring. She remembered howunconsciously, during these past weeks, she had turned to him for thesteadiness which others had lacked; how instinctively she had counted onhim for a perception of the little things, the smaller needs, which areso often the greater ones. After all, she reminded herself, in the dayby day stresses of life, it was this gift of understanding, of sympathywith the innate needs, that counted so tremendously. 

She pictured Jean, with her warm emotions, her love of the finer beautiesof life, thrown into the rough and changing currents of existence as thewife of a man older, sturdier, perhaps, than Gregg, but without hissteadier gentleness. Ellen shrank instinctively from the thought. AndGregg had changed--of that there was no doubt. There was no longer asign of his old subservience to the poisonous brew of Katleean; insteadthere was every evidence that he was not another man, but in a greater, stronger way, the man he had once been. 

After all, Ellen thought, who was she to determine for Jean the sort ofman the girl should choose--she who had permitted herself compromisingentanglements with such a one as the White Chief! With Gregg Jean wassafer at that moment than was she in her own tragic situation--safer andcleaner in her motives! . . . With something of appeal for the steadyingpower of his friendship in her need, whose eventualities would be asvital to Jean as to herself, Ellen turned with a new warmth in her mannerto greet the young man. Discussing the phenomenon of the bird migration, she went with him down the trail to the cabin. 

As they approached the house Lollie came rushing up from the beach, holding something tightly in his little hand. He was shouting excitedlyand at his urging the family gathered curiously around him to findthemselves electrified at the disclosure of what the youngster held. Itwas a nugget, fully an ounce in weight! He had found it, he explained, on the bedrock below Bear Paw Lake. 

Boreland went off immediately to prospect with Kayak Bill and Harlan. Contrary to all previous experience, this gold had not been uncovered bya storm--there had been no storm. Then there must be a place where theyellow metal lay otherwise revealed. Somewhere on the Island must be amine of gold. Harlan, who had spent an inattentive year at a school ofmines before he was requested to leave, began to take an interest in thesituation. 

Shane returned that night long after the others, without having foundanother sign. Nor was he any more successful, when day after day hecontinued to patrol the beaches, though his faith in the sands of KonKlayu remained unshaken. 

Ellen and he were returning one afternoon, from Skeleton Rib where theyhad gone to look for pay-sand. He had recovered the use of his sprainedwrist and had brought along the shotgun. Opposite the little lake inthis vicinity they turned in from the beach. A drizzling rain had begunto fall. The dead yellow grass lay flat on the ground. The bare brownbranches of the alders were hung with globules of water which fell, wetting Ellen as she brushed through them. Out on the lake she caughtglimpses of a flock of belated mallards, but since there was now noupstanding vegetation it was difficult for the hunters to hide theirapproach. Crouching low behind an alder Ellen watched Shane creep upwithin shooting range. Since the gun was an old thing held together bycopper wire, and went off at the slightest jar it was impossible to carryit loaded. Shane paused, inserted the shells, raised the piece and tookcareful aim. There came a loud report, a whirr of wings, and the nextinstant Shane fell backward, one hand flung upward to his head. 

Ellen sprang to where he lay motionless, blood streaming down one side ofhis face. Even in her anguish she noted that the gun barrels had burstfrom the force of overloaded shells. Swiftly she plunged herhandkerchief into the water and uttering incoherent entreaties andendearing names, began to bathe his face which already was beginning toswell. 

For what seemed a long time Shane did not move. Frantically she tore astrip from her lawn chemise and bound up his head to stop the flow ofblood. Then with all her strength she sought to raise him from thegrass. His head fell limply back exposing his bare brown throat to thefalling rain. 

"Shane . . . Shane . . . O, help me, dear! Please!" Cold fear grippedher and made her voice tremble. She struggled once more to raise hisheavy body. She was unable to lift him. Calling him, imploring him, shetried again and again, until at last he sat up slowly, groaning andputting both hands to the bloody bandage about his head. 

"Come, dear--" her voice broke as her shaking hands tried to assist him. "We must go home, Shane. Come now. " As if he were a child she coaxedand encouraged the stunned man until he rose painfully, swayed, andsteadied himself against her. After a lurching step or two he managed tokeep his feet and in silence that struck to her heart, he suffered her tolead him along through the soft, drizzling rain. 

Ellen found only Harlan at the cabin. Without a question the young mansprang to her assistance. He helped Shane into the house and to bed. 

The last of the antiseptic had been used for Kobuk. Ellen ran for theclear water from the hard-wood ashes--the Indian antiseptic which KayakBill had induced her to make, and while she held the basin Harlan washedthe blood from her husband's face. The sight of the wound sickened her. Just below Shane's right eye was a livid gash two inches long. 

What could she do? In some way stitches must be taken to draw the edgestogether, but how? She had nothing but ordinary needles and thread. Sheblamed herself bitterly for leaving Katleean without a medicine chest. Amoment she thought of that one, ordered from the States, which was toarrive on the _Hoonah_. Then again she set her mind to the solution ofthe problem before her. . . . It came to her in a flash, one of KayakBill's tales of an Eskimo woman's ingenuity!

"Gregg!" She spoke firmly. "Hand me the scissors. " She took thehairpins from her hair and it fell in a heavy coil to her waist. Harlaneyed her as though he feared she had suddenly gone insane when she cut astrand of hair and held it up to him. 

"We'll boil this and some needles, Gregg, " she continued quietly, "andwhen they are sterilized you must help me put the stitches in thiswound. " . . . 

Half an hour later it was over. Shane lay back on his pillow. Ellenwatched beside him stroking his hand which lay twitching on the coverlet. Something in the outline of her husband's long, still body under theblankets chilled her with foreboding. Heretofore the thought of hungeronly had been with her. Now, should sickness or further accidents comeupon them . . . Should Shane develop blood-poisoning . . . 

Like one doomed Ellen's eyes sought the wall calendar. NOVEMBER 1 mether gaze with the force of a blow. The _Hoonah_ was already two weeksoverdue!

Suddenly she bent and rested her head against the blankets, pressing herquivering lips fiercely, passionately against her husband's thin hand. 

Tomorrow . . . Tomorrow she must--she _would_ release the pigeon!

CHAPTER XXIV

MAROONED

Six hours later Kon Klayu was cowering in the blasts of the mostterrific storm yet experienced by the adventurers. The fearfulvelocity of the wind and rain made it impossible for Kayak Bill to keephis tent erected, and in the middle of the night he was forced to movehis bedding into Jean's and Lollie's room, where the sisters helped himscreen himself off by tacking up a tarpaulin. 

After Jean had slipped back into her bunk she was surprised to hear hersister discussing, almost wildly she thought, the possibility of abird's flying against such a gale; and after everyone else had settleddown again for the night she could hear Ellen pacing the floor of theliving-room. Poor Ellen, thought the girl, she was all unstrung overShane's accident and frightened at the thought of blood poisoning. 

But Shane was feeling much better next morning, though he kept to hisbed all day and for several days after. He was unusually silent, realizing, perhaps for the first time, the gravity of the situation, for the storm did not blow itself out in three or six days, as stormshad always done before. It lasted twelve days and increased inviolence until near the end. 

During this great gale Jean sought her bunk early each evening and laythere between sleep and wakefulness listening to the wind and sea. Shewas thankful that this was not a snow storm, since snowfall on KonKlayu did not come until later, owing to the proximity of the JapanCurrent, but she found herself concerned for Harlan alone in his Hut onthe other side of the Island. When it became apparent that Shane's cutwas healing as it should, the girl found her thoughts lingering onGregg. She missed him more than she cared to admit, even to herself. 

Before Shane's accident with the shotgun it had fallen to Gregg's lotto hunt the ducks and geese which were by now an important part oftheir food. There was little ammunition and every shot must be made totell. With the make-shift shotgun it was impossible to hit anything onthe wing, and though it was evident that Harlan's sporting instinctsrevolted against slipping up and pot-shooting birds on the water, thescarcity of shells compelled him to do it. Kayak Bill flatly refusedto handle anything but his . 45, confessing to a casual scorn for whathe termed a "shootin' iron that spewed its durned in'ards all over therange. " In the growing anxiety over the non-arrival of the _Hoonah_, Ellen had relaxed somewhat, her vigilant attitude toward Harlan, and soJean had come to join the young man on his hunting expeditions. 

Recalling them now she glowed at the memory of those past Octobermornings, when, leaving the rest of the family sleeping she had slippedout of the cabin and met the waiting hunter. She had grown to love thehunt--the early sun sparkling on the yellow of frost-coated grass, thegreen of the ocean, the tonic of the sea air, and the swift, never-to-be-forgotten creak-creak-creak of flying wings close overhead. There was a thrill in the cautious creeping toward the lake wreathed inthe gossamer mists of the autumn morning, and the wriggling through thestiffened yellow grass, and a pang of delighted wonder at coming soclose to the wild, winged things, squattering and making softduck-chatterings in the shadow of the reeds. 

But duck-hunting days were over now, she reminded herself regretfully. The shotgun was useless. 

Shane's wound continued to heal without complications, but still aftereveryone else had long been in bed, Jean could hear Ellen pacing thefloor nearly every night. This increased the uneasiness that had beengrowing upon the girl. She wished Ellen would confide more in her. She was finding it very hard for her to understand her sister thesedays. Ellen had not been herself for weeks. The girl recalled hercurious and changeable attitude toward the pigeon the White Chief hadgiven Loll. From at first ignoring it, Ellen had suddenly begun tomanifest a lively interest in its welfare. The best of the rolled oatswent to feed it. Owing to the occasional frosts Ellen had moved thecage into the shed and she herself had solicitously covered it nightlywith an old blanket. Sometimes she had stood for ten minutes at a timelooking in at the smoke-grey bird. 

One incident stood out clearly in Jean's mind. She had come upon Ellenmusing thus beside the cage. Her sister had just washed her hair andit hung about her shoulders in lovely, golden-brown profusion. Therewas a look on her face--Jean, thinking of it, shook her head to banishthe memory of that look. Presently Ellen had reached up and with atrembling hand gathered together the short tresses that marked theplace where she had--foolishly, Jean thought--cut off the lock of hairin Katleean. Ellen's fingers slipped over the severed ends, thenflattened themselves forcibly over the latch on the pigeon's cage. "No! No!" Passionately the words had escaped her as she turned herback on the cage. Meeting Jean's questioning eyes she had flushed andgone on into the house without speaking. 

Always, at night, as Jean lay thinking, this incident drifted withcurious insistency through her mind. 

As the storm continued through dreary days, blowing always from thesouthwest, the strange, reverberating roll from the south cliffs camemore loudly than ever before. Listening to it sometimes, Jean wouldshiver at the hint of the supernatural in its cadence. 

The continual thundering of the surf on the beach and the trembling ofthe cabin in the rainy blasts of the gale finally began to tell on thenerves of those confined in such small quarters. Gradually the talk atthe table grew less. Even Kayak Bill ceased his monologues. He andShane smoked more than ever and buried themselves in the reading of theold magazines and papers. Ellen seemed more affected than any of them. Her face had become drawn and haggard. She was so inattentive toLoll's questions when the daily lessons were in progress that thelittle boy grew impatient and asked Jean to help him instead. Then, too, Ellen's strange solicitude for the pigeon increased until it waswith difficulty that Shane could prevent her bringing the bird into thecabin during the gale. 

One night Jean woke from a troubled doze. Everywhere was a strange, arresting stillness. She realized in a moment that the wind had gonedown. The roar of the breakers which had been so loud and constant, now sounded muffled. Her first feeling was one of intense happinessand relief. The storm was over at last--the longest storm she had everknown. Surely, now, she thought, the _Hoonah_ would come. 

Though she knew it must be after midnight there was a murmur of voicesin the living-room. A chair scraped along the floor. Then came KayakBill's tones, distinctly and with a gravity that sent a chill throughher. He was evidently concluding some argument. 

"But I'm a-tellin' you, Boreland, that there's nary a Injine or a whiteon the Alasky coast that'll venture nigh the Island o' Kon Klayu afterNovember first----"

"Great God, Kayak!" Boreland's protest cut him short. "Kilbuck_knows_ we haven't enough grub for the winter! He wouldn't leave ushere to starve, especially two women and a child, after he has put ushere himself! He's _promised_ to bring us provisions! Given us hisword! To go back on it would be a violation of the law of the cache!Why, the man has my schooner, and he hasn't paid for her yet! No, no, Kayak. Kilbuck will come. . . . By God, he's _got_ to come!"

There was slow finality in Kayak Bill's answer. 

"Boreland, he's waited too long. He _can't_ come. It's the thirteentho' November. No one can come to Kon Klayu now till the breakup o' thewinter. . . . The White Chief's staked the cards on us, son. We're upagainst it. "

PART III

CHAPTER XXV

ON RATIONS

After the great November storm was over, Ellen realized that herproblem--for the present--had been taken out of her hands. Even if thepigeon were sent now, the White Chief would not risk bringing aschooner to the Island of Kon Klayu; there was no boat built that couldmake a landing on its reef-guarded shores during the winter season. Itwas too late. They were marooned until spring at least. She wouldkeep the bird until then. Further than that she refused to think. 

As she accepted the inevitable she felt a sense of peace settle uponher, and with it came new strength. As Kayak had said they were upagainst it, and knowing now what she had to fight, she was ready. 

Her mind turned at once to the pitifully meager supply of provisions. With all the shrewdness of a general preparing to withstand anindeterminate siege, she planned her rations so that they might lastthe longest period of time. If the party could exist until spring, acannery boat, a whaler, a ship of adventure, might call in and getthem, even though the White Chief did not come. Ellen made a mentalvow that they would live until spring. 

On the fourteenth of November she made the entry in her log:

 We have the following provisions on hand: Flour--damaged--enough for eight months Bacon, 1 slab Dried onions, 1 pound Beans, enough for five months if we have them once a week Rice--damaged--for five months, once a week Lemon Extract, 1 bottle Salt and Pepper Worcestershire sauce, 1 bottle Dried bear meat Bear fat, rancid Rolled oats--mouldy--four months Tea and Coffee Three boxes candles Two jars canned plums from mother's

That afternoon, on a pretense of his looking for pay-sand, she sentLoll down on the beach, and, calling the others together, summed up theproblem that confronted them. She read her list of provisions and setforth her plan of rations. In conclusion she urged that each one takea turn hunting for sea-food on the rocks and stranded fish on thebeach. If they could supplement their ration thus, they might, byconfining themselves strictly to it, exist until some boat came in thespring. Harlan, she decided, must take his meals at the cabin. 

"Jean and I will begin gathering shellfish tomorrow, while you menstart to lay in a supply of firewood for the winter months, " shefinished. Even Shane agreed that existence, now, instead of gold, wastheir main concern on the Island of Kon Klayu, although his was thelogic which still insisted that their desertion by Kilbuck could not betrue simply because it seemed so intolerable. 

Strange to say, after this frank facing of their difficulties every oneof the party felt more cheerful. There came a letting down of thetension, a relaxation of the nerves, which had made their storm-bounddays so trying. 

The following morning found Ellen and her sister in hip rubber bootsbelonging to their men, headed for Sunset Point. They were equippedwith pails and case knives. 

The sun shone bright although there was little warmth in it. The airwas sharp and exhilarating and wonderfully pure after the great wind. The thunder of surf on a hundred reefs spoke of the storm of yesterday. 

They soon found themselves down among the great boulders amid tanglesof brown seaweed, where the shallow pools left by the outgoing tidewere alive with strange and interesting sea life. Here, more than inany other place on Kon Klayu they were conscious of the air, the sound, the whole enchanting spell of the sea. The bottoms of tiny sea-poolswere dotted with red and yellow starfish. Entrancing rose and purplesea-anemones blossomed like thistles on the water-covered stones but ata touch, a sound, folded their delicate beauties into tight buttonshardly to be distinguished from the base to which they clung. Comical, tiny iridescent fish, with eyes of bulging astonishment, and thorns ontheir backs, darted about the women's feet and went into hiding underfloating russet seaweed. The big boots lumbering into the shallowwater caused sea-eggs of green and lavender to move solemnly on thebottom with raylike prickles erect. 

"We'll try the sea-eggs later on, " Ellen said, as she watched them. "Senott told me at Katleean that all natives eat them. "

The boulders were encrusted with great, grey, open-mouthed barnacles. Periwinkles, like tiny purple snails, clustered on the weeds. Thesewere so numerous that the sisters could not step without crushing them. The crunching sound at first filled Ellen with repugnance for her task, but necessity forced her on and before she had filled her pail withthem she had become accustomed to it. 

As they moved farther out to where the waves of the ebb tide werecreaming against the rocks, the dark seamed sides were painted adelicate sea-pink by a lichen-like growth. Above their heads theseboulders rose and all about them was the soft, seeping sound that seathings make when the tide is low. 

Kayak Bill had often described what he called a "gumboot, " remarkingthat the name was bestowed locally because of the toughness of thisaquatic animal when cooked. From the old man's description Ellen hadthought they might be limpets. Since there were no clams on the beachof Kon Klayu she had concluded to try them. 

Now, suddenly, she came upon them, their cone-shaped shells adhering tothe rocks. When she and Jean tried to pick the small creatures fromtheir abiding places, the least touch or sound caused them to tightento the boulders. It was impossible then to dislodge them withoutsmashing the shell. 

"We'll have to sneak up on them, El, " whispered Jean, suiting heractions to her words, and with a sudden, swift movement sweeping half adozen from their support. It was then that the sisters began toexperience the thrill of anticipation, the fascination of uncertainty, that comes to those forced to hunt their food in wild places. 

The tide came in flooding the pools in which they were standing andwarning them that it was time to leave. With full pails they hastenedto the cabin eager to try their new food. 

Periwinkles, boiled, had not an unpleasant taste, but because of theirlikeness to worms, neither of the women could eat them. It fell tolittle Loll to extract them from their small shells by means of a pin. This was a slow process and after the novelty wore off, the youngstergave utterance to loud lamentations over Kayak Bill's fondness forperiwinkles. 

The "gumboots" were also boiled, and found to be as rubbery as the nameimplied. Chopping them fine Ellen made a hash of bread crumbs andfried the mixture in bear fat. Afterward she sometimes added a smallbit of chopped bacon, considered a rare treat since the bacon washoarded for flavoring beans which they were permitted but once a week. 

In putting her family on rations Ellen noticed that each one's appetiteincreased tremendously. Only by exercising the most rigid self-controlcould she keep herself to the portions she had allotted. The sight ofLollie scraping his plate for the last morsel of food and then lookingup at her expectantly, was the hardest thing she had to bear. She soonbegan, surreptitiously, to put aside a portion of her daily share forhim. 

For a time food was the all-absorbing topic of conversation. The menfound a certain grim amusement in sitting about the table talking ofthe kind of "grub" they would order if they were in the States. Theycould go into such detail as to taste and smell of certain appetizingdishes eaten in the past that often Jean laughingly stopped them. 

"By Jove!" Harlan would say. "I know a little place in San Franciscowhere you can get a beefsteak Bordelaise that would _actually_ . . . "

"Um-m, yes, " Shane would follow, "and don't you remember that littleItalian dump on Columbus where they serve spaghetti with a gooey stufffilled with chicken livers and mushrooms--Oh . . . Man!"

"One time up on the Kuskokwim I snared me a cut-throat, " Kayak Billwould drawl, and then, with an angler's delight, proceed to describeevery wiggle of that super-fish until he landed it, and every phase ofcamp-fire cooking, until, crisp and bacon-garnished, he ate it from thefrying-pan. 

Jean's longing for fruit, especially bananas, was so intense that sheused to wake up at night thinking about them. She dreamed of bananassmothered in cream. When she closed her eyes sometimes during the day, bunches of the yellow fruit dangled enticingly in her mental vision. She tried to re-read _Pickwick Papers_. The hungry Fat Boy at firstappealed to her, but Dickens' masterly descriptions of the nourishingfood of old England filled her with such a hunger that she put the bookaside. 

December proved to be a month of snow and blizzards, but despite thefaithful patrolling of the beach nothing in the way of pay-sand came tolight. Whenever the weather permitted everyone sought shellfish amongthe rocks, as it had become necessary to gather a quantity sufficientto last during storms. The prickly sea-eggs were now added to thefare. Often however, when the wet snow was hurled unceasingly againstthe windows for days, the supply of sea-food gave out. Then, forhours, there was hunger in the little cabin on Kon Klayu. 

Jean noticed that her nephew, in some manner, had come to know that itdistressed his mother to speak of being hungry after he had eaten whatshe had to give him. It was seldom now that he mentioned it. Hislittle mind appeared to be taken up with speculations as to Christmas. 

Jean had often listened to Kayak Bill prefacing his tales with: "I'ma-tellin' o' you, you never can tell a speck about a man till you'cabin' with him a-durin' o' one winter. " She was beginning tounderstand what the old man meant by it now. She was growing toappreciate Shane's irrepressible Irish cheerfulness that always roseabove hunger, accident and the nerve-trying confinement of the cabin instormy weather. Because of him the storm-bound hours, despite the foodsituation, were for the most part, times of story telling and exchangeof reminiscences. For Shane, with a strange faith, still clung to thethought that the White Chief might bring the _Hoonah_ to the Islandbefore the end of the year. 

As Christmas drew nearer, however, with one storm succeeding another, achange came over him. He began to sit beside the table in silence, hishead in his hands, his brown eyes looking off into space. 

One night when the house trembled in the grip of a blizzard and theunexplained reverberating sound from the south cliffs came louder thanusual, he sat thus while Kayak Bill played a game of solitaire on theopposite side of the table. Lollie had established himself in hismother's bed. While he turned the pages of a fairy tale book, hepointed out the pictures to Jean. That day there had been no shellfishto supplement the scanty allowance of food and the little fellowlingered hungrily on the colored pictures depicting bountiful tables offeasting kings; jolly fat cooks basting roasting ducks in the kitchensof queens; little Jack Horner pulled a ripe plum from a pie. Finallyhe turned a page which disclosed the Queen of Hearts holding out a panof delicious, browny-crusted tarts. The crimson jelly at the centersseemed almost to quiver. 

"Oh, mother, mother, I'm _so hungry_!" he burst out. 

Ellen laid aside her sewing and going to the cupboard brought out atiny dish of rice and gave it to him. Jean saw Boreland's eyes followthe movements of his wife. She wondered if he, like herself, suspectedthat the dish contained over half Ellen's portion for that day. Therewas a tenseness about his jaw, a smouldering light in his eye that senta queer chill over the girl. A few minutes later he rose and climbedup into the loft. When he descended he held a revolver in his hand. 

The weapon was one he had carried since boyhood. Its history belongedto an oldtime Indian scout, a friend of Boreland's father. On itshandle were three notches. The last time the girl had heard the storyof those three notches was at Katleean when Shane, pointing them out tothe White Chief, had told him that each one stood for a man whodeserved and met death at the hand that held the gun. 

She grew inattentive to the questions of Loll as she watched herbrother-in-law at the table oiling and polishing the old revolver. Hespent much time at his task and when it was finished sat thoughtfully, his thin fingers slowly passing over the notches as if he were countingthem for the first time. After some minutes he leaned across to KayakBill. 

"Kayak, " he said so softly that the girl could scarcely hear, "_if_ Iget back to Katleean in the spring--_there will be four--_" He tappedthe notched handle of the revolver significantly. 

A sudden chill of foreboding, doubly terrible because at first so vagueand incomprehensible, swept her. She saw Kayak's eyes looking intoBoreland's. They were tense, half-closed and glittered coldly, not atShane, but at some vision induced by Shane's words. Then the old mannodded twice, slowly, approvingly, decisively. . . . 

As the days of December went by everyone on the Island, with theexception of Loll, asserted often that of course there could be noChristmas. Despite this, however, as the date drew near the holidayspirit hovered persistently over the camp. Mysterious things weregoing on. Kayak Bill withdrew himself behind his curtain very earlyeach day, and tantalizing sounds of whittling came from his corner;while Boreland and Harlan shut themselves up for hours in the shed. 

The day before Christmas came white and still with great softsnowflakes falling until noon. 

"Santa Claus weather! Santa Claus weather!" sang Lollie dancing up anddown before the window. "He'll surely come now--if there is one, " headded for Jean's benefit. The girl had tried to explain the spirit ofChristmas to the youngster, but he still clung to his early conceptionof the good old saint. 

There was a party that night on Kon Klayu. Jean had never admired hersister more than when she saw Ellen rise above the haunting fear ofstarvation and with the few pitiful things at her command create thecheer of Christmas Eve. And there was no lack of presents--home-madegifts that had cost their donors much thought and hours oflabor--gifts, some of them smile-provoking, but bringing with them asense of warmer friendliness, a touch of tenderness which enhances thespirit of fellowship that comes to those who share the hazards andadventures of the North. 

Loll, with one lump of hoarded sugar, two full-rigged schooners, anIndian war canoe and a new blouse sewed by Ellen's fingers, wassupremely happy. For the men were mittens made of a blanket, scarvesknitted from the unraveled yarn of two old sweaters, and--even on KonKlayu the male members could not escape the inevitable Christmasneck-tie, for Ellen had produced from the bottom of her trunk threebrand new ones purchased for Shane before she sailed from the States. 

Kayak Bill looked his over a few minutes and then disappeared behindhis tarpaulin-screen in the next room. When he emerged it was with onehand holding aside his bushy beard. The new neck-tie, impaled with alarge nugget pin, hung low on his blue flannel shirt. 

"I ain't wore one o' these dude halters for ten yars, Lady, " hedrawled, hitching his shoulders with an air of being pleased withhimself, "but I ain't forgot how they goes. "

There were two beautiful caps for Ellen and Jean made of the iridescentnecks of mallard drakes, carefully prepared and sewed by Kayak; adust-pan made of a kerosene can; a calendar ruled off on the letterpaper of the defunct life insurance company, and to their genuinedelight, two paper knives carved from the tusks taken from the seamonster's head which Lollie had discovered. Adorned with theemblematic figures of the Thunderbird and the Wolf they were, in theirway, works of art, and Ellen, reading the penciled greeting on thepaper attached to her gift, could not keep the look of surprise fromher face as she thanked Harlan for it. It occurred to her that thisyoung man was continually and agreeably surprising her lately. 

After the distribution of the gifts, and the old-time stories told inthe candlelight, Jean, by the magic of her violin coaxed them all intosinging the Yuletide songs fraught with memories of the homeland;--allthat is with the exception of Kayak Bill. The old man, his highforehead shining from his recent ablutions, his bushy beard hiding hisnew tie, sat silent, even wistful, stroking the home-made gifts thatlay upon his knees. Jean as she played, wondered what long-agomemories were misting his hazel eyes. 

When the singing came to an end, little Loll, without an invitation, rose and announced:

"_Now_, I'm going to speak my piece. "

He walked to the middle of the room and made a low, circular bow. Inthe effort to recall that "piece" he had spoken the year previous inSunday-school, his brow puckered and his grey eyes took on a look ofintense thought. His emphasis fell in strange places:

 "'Twas _the_ night before Christmas An' all _through_ the house Not-ta creature . . . Was . . . Was _stirring_ _Not_-teven a mouse . . . Not-_teven_ a mouse . . . Not-teven a _mouse_!"

All efforts to remember further having proved vain, Lollie, far frombeing embarrassed, bowed low again with the poise of one who hasrecited brilliantly, and took his seat amid the applause. . . . 

Harlan rose at last to say goodnight. From Loll's bunk, where she washelping the sleepy boy to bed, Ellen called after him her Christmaswishes. Jean slipped into her coat and followed the young man out tothe porch. 

The night had turned wondrously clear, but it did not seem cold to thetwo who stood silently looking out on its beauty. 

"Never was there such a night for Christmas carols, Gregg, " said thegirl after some minutes had gone by. "Wait. "

She darted into the cabin and returned almost immediately with herviolin tucked beneath her coat. 

"I may never have a chance like this again. . . . I'm going up as faras the Lookout with you. Come. "

They climbed up through the white, star-lit silence to the top of thehill. From the height they looked down through the weird half-lightreflected from the snow. The formless waters kissed the ermine-wrappedshores of the Island. The sweet, hoarse voice of the sea had in it thecadence of happy child calls. There was an effect of illimitablespace, of wonderful freedom. Up from the north into the night-bluebowl of the sky mystic lights unfurled themselves in pulsing, wreathingchiffon-like streamers of changing rose and violet, green and amber, red and gold--unfurled . . . Trembled . . . Rippled into opal splendor, and then swiftly and softly swept across the heavens and entangledthemselves in the calm, friendly stars that looked down on Kon Klayu. 

Jean caught her breath. 

"The Christmas lights of God, " she whispered. "I have never been sonear to Him before. " She lifted her violin to her shoulder and beganthe opening bars of _Holy Night_. Gregg's voice joined the instrument, reverent, worshipful. 

As she played there beside him the girl knew that they were sharingsomething never to be forgotten by either--the magic of a moment ofperfect accord, a moment of beauty that transcended earthly things andleft them but two souls worshipping together beneath the softened gloryof the Northern Lights. 

CHAPTER XXVI

WINTER DAYS

It had taken Gregg Harlan some time to realize fully that mereexistence on Kon Klayu was an all-absorbing problem! but when he did sothe primitiveness of it stimulated, intoxicated him, not as liquor hadonce done, but with a freshness that cleared his brain and sent hisblood racing through his veins. Every cell in his body tingled withlife. He felt this exhilaration in his swinging stride, his up-liftingchin. By Christmas he was no more tormented by a craving for liquor. On the contrary he was nauseated at the memory of his stupid, soddendays at Katleean. Alaska, the Great Country, which either makes orbreaks, had challenged him to prove himself a man--and he had acceptedthe challenge. Kon Klayu, Island of mystery and beauty had laid itscharm upon him, for despite the hardships it was a place where romanceand adventure were the realities of life. 

For the first time in his twenty-five years he felt the spur ofresponsibility. He was filled with a desire to fight, to conquer, todo something to try his new strength and to earn favor in the eyes ofJean--and Ellen. He grinned boyishly to himself, sometimes, when thismighty urge to noble deeds resolved itself into the accomplishing ofprosaic tasks such as getting in firewood and hunting shellfish. 

In the matter of clothes, Boreland and Kayak were the only ones whowere in any way prepared for the cold weather. Ellen had cut up ascarlet blanket to make Harlan and Loll winter coats. Jean hadfashioned for herself an attractive mackinaw from a small whiteblanket, and the young man was not blind to the picture she made, red-cheeked, laughing, trotting along beside him on the beach as theylooked for sea food. 

One windy day Kayak Bill came in from the beach without his cherishedsombrero. 

"The gol durned breeze snatched it often my haid, and lit out with itfor foreign parts, " he drawled sadly as he smoothed down his wildlyblown locks. Despite Ellen's anxious protests he went bareheaded afterthat, although he wound his scarf about his ears on extra cold days. His hair continued to grow unchecked also, for after watching Ellenearnestly manipulating an inverted bowl and a pair of scissors whileshe trimmed her protesting husband's hair, Kayak spoke with slowconviction:

"I hearn tell o' lady barbers down in the States, but I ain't no naturefor 'em a-fussin' round my noggin. My kin folks drug me to theMethydist meetin' house once a-fore I stampeded from Texas, and thesarmon teched on a long-haired pugilist, Samson, what was trimmed by alady barber by the name o' Dahlia. " . . . 

For some time Kayak and Boreland had been trying, as they put it, to"taper off" on their tobacco. Harlan, when he found that the _Hoonah_was not coming, had given up smoking so that the older men might longerenjoy what tobacco was left. After days of silent, mental wrestlingwith his desire, he reached the stage where he had successfully downedthe craving, and he watched with grim amusement, and no littlesympathy, his partners' vain efforts to limit themselves to one pipeafter each meal. 

There finally came a day when Kayak and Shane sat at the supper tablelighting their farewell pipes. 

"Goo' bye, lovely Lady Nicotine!" Airily Boreland waved a hand throughthe smoke. "I bid thee farewell without fear and without regret! . . . As a matter of fact, Bill, I've intended to quit right along, and thismakes it easy. Filthy habit, anyway, and I don't want to set a badexample for Loll. "

It was from Jean that Harlan learned the details of the followingdismal day. It was so stormy that the men could not go out to work. After breakfast Shane and Kayak had risen from the table and, pipes inhand, instinctively sought the tobacco-box in the corner. Theirfingers met on the bare tin bottom. With blank looks they faced eachother. 

"Hell, Kayak, I'd forgotten!" Boreland grinned sheepishly. "Nowbegins the battle of Nicotine! Buck up, pard!" He forced acheerfulness into his tones as he slapped Kayak's shoulder. 

Kayak Bill looked down at the empty pipe cupped lovingly in his hand. With a sound between a grunt and a groan he put it back into his pocketand dawdled dispiritedly off into the other room to his bunk behind thetarpaulin. 

Shane thrust both hands deep into the pockets of his overalls andshifted his weight alternately from heel to toe. . . . Crossing overto the stove where his wife stood he bent upon her a wistful, little-lost-dog expression, so ridiculous in a man of his size thatEllen burst into laughter. 

"Poor--little--thing!" she sympathized, patting his cheek. "It's lostits pacifier, it has!"

With a sickly grin Shane turned to the window and dully watched theslanting sleet blown by the gale. . . . Kayak's puffing snore camepresently from the other room. Boreland wheeled about, glaring. 

"By thunder! to think that old cuss can _sleep_ at a time likethis! . . . The man must have a heart of stone! For two cents I'd goin there and . . . "

He paced the floor, his hands fidgeting. 

"Are you _sure_, El, you didn't save out a box of tobacco on us, justto give us a bit of a surprise now, " he asked hopefully for the thirdtime that morning. 

In the days that followed Harlan could not make up his mind whosuffered most during the "battle of Nicotine"--Shane or Kayak Bill, orEllen. He grew to feel a bit sorry for Ellen. He found himselfgradually assuming the duties neglected by the other two men duringtheir period of misery. Boreland lost much of his good-naturedcheerfulness. He was inclined to view the food situation withincreased alarm. He often spoke sharply to Lollie, and sometimes tohis wife. But invariably after an irritable outburst he sought to makeup to the boy with some home-made toy, or a new story of adventure. With Ellen his method of apology was different. He would put his armacross her shoulders and look down at her whimsically. 

"I swan to goodness, little fellow, if I wasn't an angel I couldn'tlive with you at all, at all, you're that peevish since I've stoppedsmoking. " Then with his most wistful Irish look he would add, "Bepatient with me El. I'm having a hell of a time. "

As Harlan watched the struggles of his partners he grew to have abetter opinion of his own power of self-control. Jean was responsiblefor this in a way. Sometimes on stormy days when it was impossible togo outside, the patience of the whole family would be sorely tried bythe actions of the older men. They would research every nook andcorner of the cabin, go into the pockets of every garment and even riplinings in their efforts to find some over-looked bit of tobacco. After just so much of this, Jean would turn on them scornfully andcompare their childish actions with those of Harlan when he wasundergoing the same deprivation. Undoubtedly this holding him up as agood example had the opposite effect to that hoped for by Jean, but itnevertheless caused a warm glow to encircle his heart. 

One day Boreland made a great discovery: By pulverizing the oldnicotine-laden pipes, of which there were over half a dozen, he foundthat the resultant mixture could be smoked. He and his partner indisgrace did no work that day. In disgust Ellen banished them to thewoodshed to do their smoking. From this place of refuge Kayak Bill'sdrawling tones of immense satisfaction floated out at intervals:

"Honest to grandma, Shane, I'm a-feelin' like a new man. "

By the time the corncobs had all been pulverized and consumed, and butone cannabalistic pipe, itself pared down until it held but athimbleful, was left between them, all the other members of the partyhad arrayed themselves against the sufferers. By persisting eventhough sickness was often the penalty for smoking an extra strongpulverized pipe, they had forfeited the sympathy of all hands. Matterscame to a crisis one afternoon, when Boreland, taking a candle, crawledup into the loft to make one more search among the provisions. 

Suddenly there was heard a great commotion overhead--a beating and afloundering about. 

"Hey! Get some water up here--quick!" came Shane's alarmed shout. "I've set the bloody place afire!"

Half an hour later the fire was out, thanks to the efforts of thebucket brigade which rushed water from the spring, but in the roof wasa gapping hole, and much of the outfit stowed away in the loft was wetagain. 

Boreland came slowly down from above. He was besmudged, apologetic andsheepish. Ellen was waiting for him. She looked him over from head tofoot, her blue eyes snapping, scorn and supreme disgust radiating fromher. Next she turned to Kayak Bill and took him in with the same look. 

"Now, men, listen to me, " she said sternly, as they both started toslip toward the door. "I've reached the limit of my endurance. " Sheemphasized her next remarks with a decisive finger. "The _very nextone_ of you who mentions tobacco inside this cabin will be banished tothe smoke-house to live by himself. I mean every word I say!" Withhang-dog looks the culprits turned away and disappeared through thedoor. Ellen, with business-like brevity, climbed up into the loft toinvestigate. Harlan followed. 

He found a roll of tar paper with which to mend the hole in the roofand helped Ellen shift the dunnage bags which had been wetted by thewater. They worked in silence for some time. 

Suddenly Ellen stopped in her operations. She rested her palms on thefloor and looked up at Harlan. In the candle-lit gloom of the loft hecould see that her eyes were twinkling. A new friendliness was in theingenuous smile she gave him. 

"Gregg, " she said in a tone that finally admitted him to herfriendship, "remember--there isn't a man living who cannot be benefitedby having a good, sound scolding once in a while. " . . . 

And so the days passed until the end of January. They were stormy onesfor the most part, yet no ruby sand showed on the beach of Kon Klayu. One clear, cold morning Harlan and Jean were gathering shellfish amongthe boulders on Sunset Point. The air was strangely still and underthe pale sunshine the sapphire waters were tinged with rose andlavender. They had long been accustomed to those tricks played withsea and clouds by the magician Mirage, and today the crest of eachbillow was magnified until, on the horizon the points seemed to leap upinto the sky. Above a lucid space in the southwest a mass of silverand amethyst tinted clouds moved slowly and spread out like a platform. They sat on a flat boulder to watch the changing beauty of the colors. Their daily forays for shellfish had deepened their love of thesea--its ways of mystery that were ever bringing to their attentionsome new loveliness of form and tint. Now, before their incredulouseyes there appeared rising from the cloud bank the illusion ofgraciously rounded domes, spires, minarets, and the next instant theywere gazing on a city of enchantment softly reflected in a pearlysea--a silvery city of fantasy like an exquisite shadowy drawing ofsome foreign land. . . . They sat silent, entranced. How long thevision lingered neither of them knew. . . . Then a breeze fanned theirfaces and in a twinkling the city of dreams vanished. 

They raced back to the cabin with their news but found the others onthe porch. They too had witnessed the phenomenon. Kayak Bill aloneshowed no surprise. 

"That's what sourdoughs up here calls 'The Silent City, '" he drawled. "Alasky folks have been seein' it for yars. One time I saw it aboveMuir glacier, and one time when I was a-crusin' in the Bering Sea. Sailors calls it a mirrage. If I don't miss my guess, there'll be hella-poppin' in the way of a storm purty soon. "

Kayak was right. Within twenty-tour hours the worst southwest galeexperienced racked the Island. The strange reverberating roll from thesouth Cliffs beat with weird insistence on their ears for three longdays and nights. When the weather cleared the immediate need forshellfish sent Jean and Harlan out among the rocks again. 

They were coming home from Skeleton Rib with their pails full of"gumboots, " making a desultory search for pay-sand, which no one hadseen for weeks. They left the beach and turned toward the little lakevisible from the cabin porch. The storm had shifted the cannon-ballshaped boulders which characterized that part of the shore, strippedthe tundra of every sign of vegetation, and exposed the brown turfbeneath. Gregg in restoring his knife to his pocket, dropped it. Ashe stooped to pick it up a look of astonishment crossed his face. Hesank on his knees and eagerly scanned the brown surface beneath. 

"Jean!" There was excitement in his voice as he beckoned her. "Look!"

The girl rushed to his side. She bent to look and caught her breath. 

The dark surface of the turf was flecked with glittering colors of gold. 

CHAPTER XXVII

SPRING

Once again gold cast its magic spell over the Island of Kon Klayu. Thedaily food hunting was alternated with preparations for mining thegold-bearing turf--the top of which had caught, like the nap of ablanket, the flakes of yellow metal washed up by the storms of years. Though the men knew they had not yet found the source of the Islandgold, they were confident there was a small fortune in sight. 

In his enthusiasm Boreland put behind him for a time the growing hatredfor the White Chief of Katleean that was slowly eating into his heart, and with Kayak Bill and Harlan went about the "dead work" that precededthe actual mining. There were puddling-boxes and sluices to be builtat the edge of the little lake off Skeleton Rib, and the top of thegold-carrying turf was to be cut up into squares and piled likecordwood until they were ready to shred it and run it through thesluices. 

While the work went on everyone kept a sharp lookout for cannery shipsgoing west, for along the Alaskan coast the first sign of spring is thecoming of the fishing fleet from the States. 

"Of course February is a month too early, " said Harlan one evening asthey sat about the supper table discussing the possibilities of rescue, "but we ought to have some way of attracting attention. We might putup a flag-pole on the Lookout, but--" he shrugged his shoulders, "wehave no flag. "

"If you men get the pole up, I'll see that you have a flag, " Ellenpromised. 

No one had been well supplied with clothes in the beginning of theIsland adventure, and gradually Ellen had used every available piece ofcloth to eke out the worn and patched garments, which despite all herefforts, turned her family into tatterdemalions. But she took what wasleft to put together her flag: some flour sacks, an old blue shirt ofShane's and a red blanket that could hardly be spared. The men huntedfor days among the drift of the beach before finding a log the properlength and shape for their purpose, but at the end of a week the polewas in place. 

The hoisting of the flag for the first time was made an event whichdemanded the presence of every member of the party on the Lookout. Sudden, poignant emotion stirred the six tattered figures that stoodabout the pole as the crude banner unfurled its stars and stripes tothe strong breeze. Home-made and heavy it was, but it fluttered abovethem, the emblem that has ever stood for hope, for freedom, forjustice, and there was that in the sight of the flag which caused themen to stand with bared heads, while Ellen and Jean viewed it through amist of tears. 

"Oh, surely, _surely_ now, some ship will sight it and come in!"proclaimed Jean, as she turned to scan the sea, her face alight withthe faith inspired by the faded colors. 

It was the latter part of March before the smoke of the first canneryboat was seen moving slowly to the westward. Though the vessel was sofar away the watchers knew their low Island could hardly be seen fromits deck, the mere fact that ships were beginning to navigate thenorthern sea promised well, and the flag was kept flying from theLookout day and night, its stars turned down as a sign of distress. 

It was decided that Jean and Harlan should attend to the evening signalfires. There was little darkness in the nights, for already the longAlaska daylight had set in, but by placing half-dry seaweed on thedriftwood flame a great smoke resulted that, it was hoped, might beseen by passing vessels. 

It was good to sit about the fire looking down on the sea while thedusk crept in, and now that Ellen had, to some extent, modified heropinions regarding Harlan, there was nothing to hinder the growing of adelightful, outdoor companionship that made the hours pass withmiraculous rapidity for the two young fire tenders. Past hardships andhunger were forgotten up there on the Lookout. The evenings becamehours of confidences when they discussed their plans, their dreams, their budding philosophies of life. They came to know each other'smoods and each other's thoughts and that magic of shared adventureswhich can be more binding than love. 

One night Gregg told her of his early ambition to be a mining engineer, his year at a mid-western school of mines, where his studies wereterminated, he admitted with entire frankness, by a request to leave. He told her also of his return home to San Francisco, and thesubsequent years of aimless drifting which ended in the final breakwith his father. 

"I can see now, " he concluded, "that poor old dad had good reason fordisappointment. As a last resort he sent me to Katleean hoping thatI'd get some sense jolted into me--but--well, I didn't, Jean, until . . . Until the _Hoonah_ put into the bay. I've been wonderingwhat he is thinking now. . . . He hasn't had a word from me sinceAugust, although, of course, he hears from Katleean--" He checkedhimself, pausing a moment as if he were on the point of telling hersomething else. Then: "Dad is--he's interested in the Alaska FurTrading Company, you know. "

But Jean's mind was already intent on the young man's future. 

"Now you _are_ going to wake up and do something, though, " she declaredwith a decisive movement of her little head. "I don't care much forwhat you've told me of your past, Gregg, " she admitted frankly, "but--"she waved her hand with a gesture of dismissal--"up here it isn'tyesterday that counts, it's today and tomorrow. This is a wonderfulnew land to begin in----"

"And you just watch me do it, Jean!" he interrupted herenthusiastically. As if he already felt the need of action he rosefrom the ground and thrusting his hands in his pockets, began walkingup and down before her. "I've done a lot of thinking over there in mylittle Hut--a _lot_ of it, and I know this country has gotten a hold onme, some way. It's mine from now on. There's something about it thatmakes me feel alive. I want to get out and hustle like thedev--dickens. Honestly, if it wasn't for you and Ellen and Loll, Icould be glad we have been put up against it here on Kon Klayu! I'veactually enjoyed the fighting for food and warmth and shelter! . . . We'll all have a good stake when we leave here, Jean, but already I'mplanning to come back. I have a few ideas about mining that I'd liketo try out. "

The girl looked up at him, her eyes glowing with interest. Encouraged, he took his place once more by the signal fire and began in detail hisplans for the further prospecting and development of the Island. 

But not all their hours on the Lookout were spent in the discussion ofmining. They seemed to have the whole world to themselves up there--anenchanted world, cool, redolent of hidden sprouting green things andthe smell of driftwood smoke; a world tinctured with a sheer beautythat neither of them had ever known before. They had reached the stagein their companionship where sometimes they sat silent for longminutes, only occasionally looking across the fire at each other withthe smile of understanding that is often better than speech. Sometimesthey laughed together as only youth can laugh, over inconsequentialthings, and sometimes he sang to her--songs of the sea, men's songs atfirst, but these gave place later to the songs of sentiment that may, when the singer choose, be made more intimate, more tenderly personalthan the most personal spoken word. 

Jean, after she had gone down to her little bunk at night, often laythere wondering how, under the circumstances, she could be so happy, especially since the food situation was becoming more desperate eachday. But, with the exception of occasional lapses into acute anxiety, she was strangely content and confident for the future. 

One morning she was awakened by Loll's excited whisper. 

"Jean! Oh J-e-a-n! Do you hear anything?" The youngster was standingbeside her bunk, the early light falling on his red head, his earraised alertly after the manner of the little dog in a famousphonograph advertisement. She roused herself drowsily and sat up tolisten. Above the sound of the surf on the beach came the faint wildcall of gulls. 

"Oh, Loll, winter's gone!" she exclaimed just above a whisper. "Thebirds have come back to nest!"

She bounded out of bed and a moment later the two slipped quietly outto the porch. The light fall of snow had already been gone for weeks. It was a glorious morning of sunshine and sparkling sea. Looking upshe saw against the cobalt sky the white wings of sea-gulls--theharbingers of spring. 

Her happiness in the sight was somewhat lessened as the sound ofcoughing came from inside the cabin. Everyone but Ellen appeared to bestanding well the enforced diet of bread and shellfish upon which theywere now living. Sometimes Jean was worried over her sister'scondition. She suspected that never from the first had Ellen eaten herfull share of the food, even when they had had beans and rice andoatmeal. Her sister could not eat the tough "gumboots" and her onlynourishment was obtained from bread and black coffee. Ellen still wentabout her household tasks, but it took her longer to do them now and itwas evident to Jean's critical eye that her strength was waning. Meat--meat was what she needed, the girl thought. The pigeon--once shesuggested to Ellen that it might be killed, but her sister opposed theidea so violently that Jean never mentioned it again. 

One day Harlan brought down a sea-gull with a stone. Jean hopefullycooked it, but the flesh was so tainted with fish that no one could eatit. The sea-parrots had returned to the Island but these wary littlebirds kept far out over the water. 

There came a morning when Ellen did not get up for breakfast. The menleft early for the lake. They were devoting all their time to theirmining, and secure in the thought that they had struck something rich, they were eager for the clean-up; but to Jean, stepping quietly abouther household tasks, gold did not seem valuable now. It made nodifference how much they found--it would not buy them one ounce ofnourishing food--and nourishing food was what Ellen must have, and soon. 

The girl tip-toed to the bed and looked down at her sister's face, white and thin against the tumbled mass of golden-brown hair. Therewas something small and very girlish-looking about Ellen as she laythere--and something suggestive of a great weariness. Jean felt asudden tenderness for her--a desire to clasp her sister in her strongyoung arms and shield her, from what she could not tell. She stoopedand softly kissed the small, work-stained hand that lay outside theblanket. 

As she continued her work, the plan which had often before suggesteditself to her, now returned. Ellen's peculiar conduct in regard to thepigeon precluded her mentioning it to her sister. She took a sheet ofthin paper and in painstaking, minute characters wrote a message. Shewould attach it to the pigeon and turn the bird loose. Perhaps itmight fly back to Katleean, and then, surely, if the White Chief foundher message he would make an effort to come at once. 

Half an hour later she had the pigeon on the beach below the cabin. She was urging it to fly, but the bird merely spread its wings andfluttered about. Fearing that the long confinement had deprived it ofthe power of flight, Jean was redoubling her efforts, when Loll camerunning along the sand. 

"Gee Whiz, Jean!" he yelled, "What-cha doing with my pigeon? Can't yousee he can't fly good yet? Dad clipped his wings that time one of themgot caught in the hinge of his cage. " And Lollie, with coaxing noisesand terms of endearment proceeded to gather his pet into his arms. 

Obliged by Ellen's illness to assume the responsibilities of the larderJean was surprised and dismayed at the small amount of food that wasleft them. She tried to banish the fears that this knowledge broughther by talking cheerfully of the certainty of procuring seabird eggs. 

Spring had the effect of coming suddenly. The yellow grass and barebranches which had greeted them for so many months changed seeminglyovernight. The adventurers awakened one morning to find that thealders had burst into pungent, sticky little green leaves and thetundra had taken on a tinge of emerald. When the Indian celery hadgrown a foot in height Jean and Loll brought an arm-load to the cabin. The girl remembered that Senott at Katleean had told her "him plentygood eatin' when salmon run. " Everyone craved something green andthough the celery was hollow-stalked, very watery and of a strong muskytaste and odor, they ate it, because, as Loll put it, it _felt_ likegreen stuff going down, anyway. 

Ducks and geese flew over the Island so low that the sibilant sound oftheir wings could be heard from the porch. Shane often tried to killone with a stone, but without success. He and Kayak Bill had long agoused all the ammunition for their revolvers endeavoring to shoothair-seals off the south end. Shane's revolver finally disappearedentirely. One day, however, after he had stood long by Ellen's bed, hewent out to the shed. Jean coming upon him there had found himthoughtfully twirling the weapon on his finger--his trigger finger ashe had often called it. Although he announced that there were no morecartridges for it the girl later came upon five wrapped in a bandanahandkerchief. 

When at last the flowers began to bud, Jean and her nephew climbed thegulch trail to the top of the Island where Kobuk lay under the tundraon the crest of the hill. The lone tree, so like a woman withwind-blown hair, had lost one of its branches during the winter gales, but it still stood, as if looking out across Kobuk's grave to thefar-away, illimitable skyline; ever looking, Jean thought, as she was, for a ship that never came. 

She and Lollie made Kobuk's resting place a bed of transplanted violetsand iris and dog-tooth lilies. When the work was finished, Lolliestood leaning on the club he had begun to carry, as his one desire inlife at this period was to emulate Robinson Crusoe. He lookedthoughtfully down at the grave for some time. 

"Perhaps, after all, Jean, it's better that Kobuk died, " he said atlast. "We'd have nothing to feed him now, poor old Kobuk, and he'd behungry, like us. " He raised his thin little face to watch a sea-parrotflying overhead with a fish in its bill. 

Jean leaned against the tree, one of her recurrent floods ofhopelessness sweeping her. Far down the tundra toward the north shecould see the flag-pole on the Lookout. The tattered home-made flaghung dispiritedly in the still sunny air, and the smoke of the signalfire was a mere straight-rising wisp. The calls of happy mating gullscame to mock her--gulls replete with the bountiful food of the sea. Today she was hungry, so hungry that every atom of her body cried forfood, hot, nourishing food which she had not known for months. AndEllen, back there at the cabin, was growing weaker and weaker each day. 

The girl's eyes dully followed the low-flying sea-parrots. In a halfconscious way she noticed that many of them came toward the crest ofthe hill and disappeared. Sea-parrots were not as fishy tasting asgulls, as she had heard Kayak Bill say. If only they had some way ofkilling these birds perhaps the broth and the flesh might bring backEllen's strength. 

"Jean, isn't that the place the old bear came up the hill?" Lollie'svoice broke in on her thoughts. He was pointing to the scrubby growthon the brow of the hill where she had first seen the bear of Kon Klayu. "Let's go over and see. "

As they walked toward the ridge their feet made no sound on the softtundra. They peered down hill into the shady recesses under thestunted alder and salmon-berry bushes. Jean's nostrils twitched asthere was wafted up to her the strong, acrid odor which lingers aboutthe places of nesting birds. As her eyes became accustomed to thedimness, she ventured a remark which died abruptly as she caught herbreath. Beneath the low canopy of branches the ground was bare ofvegetation, and on the cool brown earth, packed hard by the patter ofwebbed feet, a dozen or more sea-parrots were sitting not fifteenslanting feet below!

At the sight of them Loll dropped to his hands and knees and, club inhand, crept cautiously down under the low-growing bushes. Inch by inchhe drew nearer to the birds. . . . Then, with a swift movement he wasin the midst of wildly flapping wings, clubbing fiercely atcrimson-beaked heads. 

Jean, fearing that he was in danger, threw herself on the ground andtried to wriggle forward to him, but the low growth made the passage ofher larger body impossible. She drew herself back and calledfrantically to the boy. She could hear the commotion and see theparrots one by one flying clumsily out as they escaped from the spotwhere he fought. With a shout of encouragement to him she made anotherattempt to crawl under the brush. At that moment Loll's freckled facewas thrust through the undergrowth. He turned to tug at something, grunting and straining as if trying to free it from the tangle. 

"Jean! I've got 'em! I've got 'em!" he yelled. 

A second later he was standing before her, breathless, his blouse tornfrom his shoulders, his face scratched. In his bleeding little handshe held five dead sea-parrots. "Killed 'em with my club, Jean, justlike Robinson Crusoe, 'cause they can't fly away quick under there!" heexplained. "They've all got little tunnels under there, too--nests Ithink they are, but I couldn't reach the end of 'em when I put in myarm!"

An hour later Jean was attending to the cooking of the birds. Whenskinned, only the breast was found to be edible. The meat when cookedwas coarse and dark red, but it was a palatable sea-parrot and dumplingmulligan that the girl evolved. 

When the men returned from Skeleton Rib that night there was morerejoicing over the food than there was over the fact that at lasteverything was in readiness at the lake for the first clean-up. Threepuddling-boxes stood full of the soft brown muck that had once beenturf. The sluices were in place ready for the water that would beturned into them the following day, and the tools, wheelbarrow and thecart had been drawn aside, clearing the space for action. 

"Tomorrow, boys, we'll be bringing home _hi-yu_ gold!" Shane assertedconfidently at supper. "And before the end of the week we'll all haveenough to go anywhere we wish. Now that we are certain of plenty ofbirds sure our hearts should be light as feathers--for a boat willsurely be along soon!"

On the Lookout that night Jean said good-night early to Harlan. As shecame down the hill to the cabin she stopped to look at thewide-spreading ocean. The sun had gone down in a strange sea mist andbelow her the waters heaved dim and vast and ghost-like in thetwilight. There was a hushed feeling in the air. It may have beenthat she was more tired than usual, for when she slipped into herlittle bunk she fell into a heavy sleep almost as soon as her headtouched the pillow. 

It was Shane's incredulous shout that awakened her. 

"Kayak! Come here!"

She could hear Kayak Bill moving quickly toward the door in theliving-room. 

"Ellen, you come out, too!" It was evident that Shane was laboringunder an intense astonishment. 

The girl clambered out of her bunk and flinging on a kimono, startedfor the porch. Before she reached the door Kayak Bill's unbelievingexclamation sounded:

"By--hell! The lake--" he paused in sheer leaden amazement. "The lakeis _gone_!"

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE CLEFT

On the porch all eyes were turned toward the south where the silver ofthe little lake off Skeleton Rib had always glimmered through itsscreen of alders. There was no friendly sparkle of water this morning, and gone were the trees that bordered the shore nearest the beach. Instead, a strange desolation, more noticeable because of the brilliantsunshine, hung over the spot, which now showed a vague-reddish brown inthe distance. It had the sickening effect of an empty socket fromwhich the eye has been torn. 

The bewildered look on Kayak's face was slowly changing to one ofenlightenment. 

"Folks, " he said quietly. "We're lucky to be alive this morning. There's been a tidal wave!"

His eye was taking in the length of the beach that lay between thecabin and the lake. There was a weird look of alteration about it, asif a giant hand had tampered with it during the night. Piles ofdrift-logs were stacked up far inland, and the vegetation on the banksabove the beach was flattened and in many instances swept completelyaway. Close at hand--not twenty feet from the cabin--lay windrows ofseaweed, left there by the spent wash of the great wave. Death, swift, sweeping, terrible, had been diverted only by the high bank that stoodbelow the cabin. 

It seemed incredible, monstrous, that they all should have sleptpeacefully while the mass of water was rolling in on them from thedeep. Kayak Bill, who had once seen a tidal wave on Bering Sea, pictured it advancing in the grey unnatural night from the far reachesof the ocean, growing larger and larger as it neared the shallows offKon Klayu, and then, tossing its dancing crest to the sky in giganticabandon, curling down from aloft in green-white, crushing splendor andflinging itself far over the beachline in its endeavor to encompassthem all. 

Without waiting for breakfast the men went down to the spot where thelittle lake had been. Nothing but a dark ooze remained. Every blockof gold-carrying turf, every puddling-box, sluice and tool had beencarried out to sea. The work of weeks had come to naught. Their lasthope of gold was gone. 

During the gloomy fortnight that followed it was the food supply, however, and not the calamity of the tidal wave that was subject of themost discussion. With the exception of flour there was little left ofthe outfit that had been landed on Kon Klayu, and to the consternationand chagrin of the men, they discovered that Loll was the only one whocould slip up on the sea-parrots and kill them with a club. Shane andHarlan and even Kayak Bill tried it repeatedly with no success. Theywere unable to creep down under the low-growing brush in a mannerstealthy enough to reach the birds. Even Loll found it impossible toapproach them in the open, and they grew more wary day by day. Sixpeople depended on the child for nourishing food, and Lollie, afterthat first wild morning when he had discovered his ability to kill thebirds, found his tender heart revolting against his bloody task. 

Ellen, slowly recovering her strength now that sea-parrot broth hadbeen added to the daily fare, had become painfully intuitive in thematter of all those phases of the situation which Shane and the othersclumsily tried to keep from her. Though apparently asleep, she knewthe instant that Shane crept from his bed in the very early morningsbefore the sun had dried the dew on the tundra. She could hear himtip-toe into Lollie's bunk and with forced lightness call softly:

"Come, Loll, son. Hop up now. We must be after the birds this finemorning!"

"Oh, dad! I don't want to kill any more--I can't do it, dad! . . . Let this morning go by . . . Please!" . . . 

"Whist, lad! Your mother'll hear you. Come along now, son, we'll talkit over on the outside. "

"Oh, please, _please_ . . . "

Quickly Ellen would put her fingers over her ears that she might nothear the beseeching little-boy voice, but she knew the moment Shanelifted the reluctant child from his warm bunk, and she knew, too, thatShane's heart must be aching with the pity of it, as was her own. 

One morning, thinking they had gone, she raised her head to note thehour. There was the sound of a quick step on the porch outside. 

"Oh, dad!" came Lollie's pleading tones, and Ellen knew just how hisgrey eyes, big now in his small thin face, were raised to his father's, "dad, if you could see them down there under the leaves, strutting socute-like and innocent in front of their little tunnel nests gettingready for their babies!" Then with passionate intensity: "Today . . . Couldn't you just let me off for to-day, dad?" Inspired, perhaps, bysome shade of feeling in Shane's eyes he went on with hurried, promising emphasis: "An' _tomorrow_, maybe tomorrow, dad, I'll feellike getting lots of 'em! Honest, maybe I will!"

Ellen, with a moan of mental anguish, buried her face in her pillow andcovered her ears to shut out the rest. That her boy, friend and loverof all wild things, was obliged, against his will, to slaughter birdsin order that they might live seemed more than she could bear. 

And as if to add to the hopelessness of the situation, daily nowsteamers and sailing vessels passed far out on the North Pacific, butnone swerved in its course. There was nothing to hinder the _Hoonah's_coming--nothing but the word of the White Chief of Katleean. Ellenchafed inwardly as the long, light days and nights dragged by. Helpmust come soon, and for some time she had been counting the hours untilthe pigeon's wing-feathers should grow out again. As soon as the birdcould fly she was going to take it to the Lookout and speed it on itsway with her message of capitulation to Paul Kilbuck. 

The long sunny days of May passed, turning Kon Klayu into a garden ofwild flowers. It was violet time with great bunches of purple blossomsnodding against the hillsides. Above the beachline rice-grass wavedluxuriantly. Indian celery thrust its graceful, creamy parasols abovebeach forget-me-nots, strawberry blooms, black lilies, blue geraniumsand thick carpets of delicate wee flowers that have no names. Thegreen of the tundra on top of the Island was splashed with yellowbuttercups and pink and lavender daisies, and on every little brownpool and lake floated golden lilies. The warm salt wind from the seastirred the fragrance of it all--the flowers, the moist tundra, thesun-warmed sand into a perfume that is the breath of Alaska; a clean, invigorating perfume that once known can never be forgotten. It ischarged with that indefinable charm, that hint of promise, which is somuch a part of the great North country. 

To Jean and Gregg, racing along the beaches on their various hunts forfood, it brought a joy of spring that, when they were in the open, madethem forget completely the growing seriousness of their situation. Nearly every day now the air was softly, embracingly warm, and owing tothe scarcity of garments, no one was wearing more than was necessary. The men had long been going barefooted, and Jean, as soon as theweather and the nature of her work permitted it, put her only remainingpair of worn shoes in the loft against the day when she should leaveKon Klayu. She, too, went barefooted for the most part, delighting inthe feel of the cool sand against her feet, but she carried with herthe hair-seal moccasins given her by Add-'em-up Sam's widow atKatleean. These she put on to walk over stones or along the tundra. 

As the sea-parrots were daily growing more wary, and Lollie had now toexercise the greatest caution to get near enough to club them, the needof eggs became imperative. One day Jean and Harlan were racing alongthe beach headed for the south cliffs to make their accustomed search. A rope coiled about the young man's waist held to him a bucket whichdangled and bobbed as he ran. The afternoon was sunny and a fresh seawind lifted the hair on their bare heads. The surf ringed the greysands at their feet with long foaming lines. 

"It's so beautiful, so beautiful, this land and sea, Gregg, that I feeltoday must bring us some good luck!" Jean, out of sheer exuberance, was skimming along ahead, her arms outspread, her chin high, as shedipped and leaped in imitation of Senott's sea-gull dance which she hadseen at the Potlatch. 

"Wait a minute, wild girl!" called Harlan, endeavoring to accomplishthe feat of rolling up a trouser leg as he hobbled. "Come back here!"His voice took on an exaggerated tone of threat. "Don't you realizethat a squaw's place is three steps to the rear!"

In answer to his shout she turned, and laughingly waited for him. Headvanced, suddenly assuming the slouching, shoulder-swinging gait ofthe "bad man, " his brows drawn and fierce, his chin thrust out. 

"Don't cross muh, woman!" he hissed, melodramatically. "I tell yuh, I'm rough, an' I'm tough, an' I'm from Katleean! Muh bite is poi-sson, an' muh s-s-s-ting is d-e-a-t-h! To the rear, I say!"

Quick as a flash the girl bent, and catching up a long streamer of dampkelp tossed it about his neck, retaining her hold on it as she ranahead. 

"Speak not to me of the rear, Man!" she intoned boastfully. "_I_ amXun, the Unfettered! Xun, the Woman-of-the-North-Wind! Men move notin the North except by my will. My breath in their lungs bringsoblivion. My voice in their ears--and the trail--is--empty! Come!"

Laughing derisively at his pawing efforts to dislodge the clammy kelp, she drew him along until the streamer broke. Then still talking theirhappy nonsense, they trotted side by side toward the cliffs. 

Half a mile farther on Jean sat down on a spherical boulder and donnedher moccasins. Afterward they turned in from the beach, crossed a flatsweep of tundra and ascended the hill to the top of the Island. Asthey walked toward the edge of the cliffs the shrill chorus ofthousands of sea-birds grew louder. 

"O-o-o-o!" there was a little bell-like shiver in the girl's voice. "There's no sound in all the world so wild, so suggestive of themystery of the untamed, as the calling of nesting gulls, Gregg!" Theystood on the promontory with the winged things dipping and swirling allabout them. Jean continued slowly, as if trying to put into words someillusive feeling. "Sometimes--it frightens me--I don't know why--andat the same time, it fills me with such a sense of freedom andlightness that often, just for a little moment, I almost believe I toomight rise into the air and balance myself against the breeze withthem!"

Harlan had never seen the nesting grounds of gulls in season, but Jean, before coming to Kon Klayu, had once gone ashore on a gull islandduring laying time. 

"For weeks afterward, " she told him, "every night when I closed my eyesI could see the green waving grass and grey sand dotted with hundredsand hundreds of crude nests. Each nest contained from one to threeeggs, larger than duck eggs, and of a nile-green color closely speckledwith brown, yellow and lavender. Why, they were so near together, Gregg, that it was difficult to step without crushing the eggs!"

With the memory of the gull island in her mind, she started with Harlanto traverse the stretch of green back of the promontory. 

Back and forth for a square mile they went, searching the flat abovethe cliffs. Gulls, flying above, eyed them curiously, making strangehuman sounds. Occasionally one alighted on the ground. As often asthis happened they raced hopefully to the spot but found nothing butgrass blades bending from the wind. 

"It's no use, Jean, " Harlan decided, after two hours' vain effort. "It's too early for them to lay. Let's go back to the edge of thecliffs. The shags lay earlier, I believe, only their nests are soblamed hard to get at down there. "

Jean was not enthusiastic about shag nests. 

"They fill me with melancholy--those long-necked, black creatures, Gregg, " she said uneasily. "Lollie and I call them witch-birds. Iremember last fall we used to sit on the porch steps in the afterglow, watching them--strings of dusky, witch-birds, speeding silent and lowover the darkening water to the cliffs. But, if you wish, " she added, "we'll go and see. "

They headed for the windy heights overlooking the ocean, where noddingtundra grass fringed the space beyond. Harlan took her hand as theycrept close to the edge. They peered down through the cloud of wildfowl that swarmed in uncounted thousands before their eyes. Threehundred feet below, deliberate blue rollers, with spray-laced topsswept in and broke against the rocks, the impact sending whitened waterhigh into the air. The face of the cliff was plastered with seabirds:murres, gulls, sea-parrots and cormorants. Harlan threw a stone downand the air became black with them, leaving the numbers in the rocksapparently the same. Sea-parrots flew in from the water anddisappeared under the overhanging sod at the top. Mingled with thebreath of the ocean was the wild, unforgetable odor that clings to theplaces where seabirds roost. 

Suddenly Harlan spoke. "There _are_ shags eggs down there, Jean, butthe cliff right here is too steep for us to get them. I couldn't evenlet you down over the edge on the rope. But I'll tie one end to youand we'll go along here until we find a place from which I can descend, perhaps. "

They drew back from their perilous position, and after making fast therope about Jean's waist, proceeded, stopping at intervals to lie flatand look down over the rim of space. 

They were feeling their way along the highest part of the Island, whensuddenly at their feet the tundra opened in a deep cleft not over fivefeet wide. It began six yards or more back from the edge and led downbetween crumbling, rocky walls at a fearful incline, to a ledge thirtyfeet below. 

Jean drew back with a cry at the sense of peril that came over her, butHarlan looked eagerly down. 

"By Jove, there are a _lot_ of eggs on that ledge, " he announcedenthusiastically, "and we can get them!" He hesitated a moment, considering. His eyes sought hers. "You're not strong enough to lowerme down to the ledge, Jean, but--would--would you be frightened if Ishould let you down to them?"

For one awful moment the sea and sky and birds swirled together as thegirl stood, steeped in fear. Then the raucous cries of the gullspenetrated her consciousness like shrieking voices calling: "Coward!Quitter!"

Harlan was saying convincingly: "I wouldn't let you fall, Jean. Myarms are strong as a blacksmith's--" he flexed the muscles beneath histhin shirt--"and see, there's a depression here at the head of thechasm. I can stand in it and brace myself!"

Ten minutes later Jean, with her heart beating fearfully, stood facingHarlan, as she prepared to back down the steep rocky slide. 

CHAPTER XXIX

THE SECRET OF THE CLIFFS

As she felt herself going down step by step, Jean kept her eyesresolutely shut. She steadied herself with outstretched arms and handsjust touching each wall of the cleft. The rope tightened about her, asinch by inch Gregg let it out from above. Gradually as all went well, curiosity overcame her fear and she opened her eyes. At that instantthere came a whirr and a flapping of wings that set her heart thumpingagain, and out from the overhanging tundra on top of the cliff anastonished sea-parrot flew, so close that the tip of his wing stung hercheek. She could hear other birds below and about her beating theirwings and hurling themselves in alarm from their resting places. Farbeneath the billows detoned against the crags. With hands and feet nowshe clung to the rough juttings of rock as she was being lowered. Harlan's voice, shouting encouragement, gradually became fainter. Atlast she felt her feet strike the flat of the ledge. 

With a gasp of relief she straightened and turned to look about her. She stood high on a narrow shelf thrust out from the sheer-risingcliff. Before her face swarms of birds fanned the air, their wrangleand jangle sounding almost in her ears. The wind stirred the acridsmells about her. At her feet were several crude nests of sticks. They contained eggs smaller than hen's eggs and of a pale greenishcolor. They were the first she had seen for nine months and the sightsent a thrill through her. With a little laugh at her own enthusiasmshe untied the bucket at her waist and carefully worked her way fromnest to nest as she gathered them. 

Jean, not being one of those who find themselves affected by heights, quickly became accustomed to her perilous shelf above the sea. Aftertucking a large silk handkerchief about the eggs to insure theirsafety, she sat down on the ledge to look about her. Every nook andcranny in the surrounding rocks was alive with birds. Close to her, long-necked shags on wide-spread wings balanced with dusky gracefulnessbefore sailing away through the myriad screaming gulls. Dignifiedmurres, their backs to the sea, sat soldier-like in the crevices likeplumb-bobs from their perches. Huge-beaked sea-parrots squatted withcomical solemnity or flapped quickly away toward the outer reaches ofthe ocean where thousands of their kind floated on the water like ablack cloud. These were the love-days in bird-land--the mating timefor all feathered things. Sitting there, the girl felt a suddenkindred friendliness for all these small creatures--a feeling ofat-one-ness and sympathy with their little lives and nest-makingambitions. 

As she became more at home on her ledge she began to look about herwith a view to exploring further. She lay flat on the rock and peereddown. Below her on the floor of the sea, now exposed by the fallingtide, she saw dozens of the strange, perfectly round boulders that hadbecome so familiar to all on Kon Klayu. They were of assorted sizes, and where they lay thickest there was no seaweed or kelp. . . . Aftersome minutes she became aware that from one end of her ledge where itjoined the cliff, and running parallel to it, rough, out-jutting rocksslanted downward in a crude, natural stairway, almost to the beach. With care, she told herself, after a long scrutiny, she might make thedescent. The rope about her she knew could not reach to the bottom ofthe cliff. She would untie it and trust entirely to her clinging handsand prehensile moccasined feet. She stood up, suddenly confident ofher own powers in this element. Cupping her hands about her mouth sheshouted to Harlan informing him of her intention. Evidently he did nothear her, or else she could not hear his answer. After waiting a fewminutes she untied the rope from about her and cautiously began thedescent. 

Very slowly and carefully she lowered herself, her feet and handsclinging tenaciously. The keen salt wind ballooned her ragged skirtsabout her. Occasionally when her foot slipped and showers of loosenedparticles rolled down startling birds from their perches in screamingclouds, she could feel the blood pounding in her temples in momentaryfright. At first she marveled at her own daring--then she reveled init. 

As she descended she began to experience that thrill which comes tothose who tread where no other human foot has trodden, who look onscenes no other human eye has visioned. She felt sure she was thefirst to visit this part of Kon Klayu, for the steep cliffs at thesouth were inaccessible both from the east and from the west side ofthe Island, even at the lowest tide. And in all the tales of Kon Klayushe had heard, no one had ever mentioned the chasm down which she hadcome to the ledge. In this section of tidal waves and occasional heavyearthquakes, it was possible that the cleft had opened up recently. 

At last she felt her feet on the beach below. She straightened andturned to face the ocean. The waters were sewn with jagged rocks andlong-running reefs. Sleek-haired seals bobbed up to look humanly ather. A thin, high-rising jet of water afar out bespoke the presence ofa whale. Back of her loomed the precipitous wall of the cliff. Shegasped at her own daring as her eye followed the rough stairway downwhich she had descended. A moment she wondered, with dismay, if shecould possibly climb back again; a moment she pictured her plightshould she be caught here when the tide came in and covered the narrowbeach; then her attention was drawn by that which lay farther along. She ran forward, wending her way in and out between the giant balls ofstone that lay about her. 

At the base of the precipice just ahead of her, and level with the seafloor, she saw a huge opening. As she approached, it widened, grewhigher, until she round herself peering into the yawning mouth of a seacavern fifty feet wide and half that in height. Like monster peas in agiant's open mouth lay the spherical boulders on the bottom of the cave. 

She was frightened, yet fascinated by her discovery. She hesitated amoment then advanced slowly into the cool dampness of the place. Asfar ahead as her eye could pierce the dimness, the balls of stone laycatching the light on their rounded surfaces. The walls closed inabout her, as she walked. Water dripped on her. Her feet splashedthrough puddles in the uneven, hard bottom, but here there was no traceof the seaweed that draped the rocks in all other parts of the Island. 

The sound of breakers booming against the reefs came to her in thecavern with a strange reverberating effect. The underground way ran onapparently with an upward slant as far as she could see. She longedfor a light so that she might explore further. . . . After someminutes advance into the deepening gloom, a feeling of timidity beganto assail her. She paused leaning against a lobsided boulder. Theabsence of life, the stillness, the Stygian darkness ahead seemedsuddenly ominous. She turned and saw the mouth of the cavern far backof her. Like an oblong frame it enclosed a small bright picture ofbeach and sunlit sea. Undoubtedly, she thought, when the tide wasfull, the ocean rushed in along the floor of the cave. Perhaps, whenit was stormy, it rolled the giant balls of stone backward and forward. 

Once more she glanced toward the unknown inner recesses of the cavern;then, with a little shiver, began making her way back toward the lightagain. 

Her foot went down with a quick splash into a water-filled depression, and in shaking the drops from her moccasin she noted that the stringswere untied. She stooped to fasten them; her eyes now perfectlyaccustomed to the dim light, caught a dull gleam at the edge of thepool. She was conscious of a wild thumping of her heart--an eagertrembling of the hand she instinctively reached forward. 

"No, no! It _can't_ be, " she temporized aloud, as if to fortifyherself against disappointment. She forced herself to finish tying hermoccasin, and even looked to the security of the other one before shehesitantly reached over and put her fingers on the object that hadattracted her. She held it up to the light. 

"Gold! Oh, it _is_ gold!" she breathed. 

In her hand lay a flat piece of yellow metal, smaller than the nuggetLollie had found, but of the same character. She dropped to her kneesand with unsteady eagerness searched the bottom of the shallow pool forother nuggets. Her trembling fingers encountered another one, andstill another! Then her luck seemingly came to an end. 

The floor of the cave was strangely worn and filled with numerousdepressions into which the sand had settled. Jean finally dipped herhands into the pool again and brought up perhaps a cupful. She ranwith it out to the beach and spread it out over a boulder. It wasblack, showing tiny garnet-like particles, and here and there the sunglinted on colors of gold!

She gathered the precious sand together again and stuffed it into thepocket of her shirt, then swiftly set off toward the spot where shecould ascend the cliff. 

Suddenly she remembered Gregg waiting for her at the top. She gasped, dismayed by the knowledge that she had been totally unconscious of thepassage of time. Had she been gone an hour, two--or perhaps more?What was he thinking? Perhaps he had tried to descend the cleft afterher and had fallen. Perhaps he was even now lying on the ledgebroken--dead. 

Trying to shut out these unwelcome thoughts which took away all the joyof her discovery, she hastily began her scrambling ascent of the steepincline. 

She had gone only a few feet when a shout halted her. Glancing up shesaw Gregg's relieved face above her. 

"Thank heaven, your're safe, Jean!" he shouted, and with recklessdisregard of consequences he began to slide from the ledge toward her. "I thought you'd fallen down the precipice, when I pulled on the ropeand found you not there!"

He landed on the beach at her feet. The tense look on his face fadedas his eyes devoured her. 

"Lord, girl, what ever made you do such a thing! I rushed back towardSkeleton Rib and met Kayak Bill coming this way. He let me down to theledge--for I couldn't get down any other way. He's up there nowwaiting for us. Doggone you, anyway, you little rascal!"--he laughedshakily, grasping her by the shoulders, --"you nearly scared me todeath!"

"But just see what I've found!" Jean opened her hand suddenly, andwith the three nuggets lying on it raised it toward his eyes. Thenwithout waiting for him to look at them, she thrust them into his handand began to drag him toward the mouth of the cave. 

Half an hour later two wild, troglodytic figures were giving vent totheir joy by capering and dancing about the floor of the cavern. 

"Jean, you've struck it rich! You've found the source of the gold ofKon Klayu!" Harlan shouted for the fifth time. "It's better than beachmining! It's better than Shane ever dreamed! I know enough to venturethat this whole blessed little isle must have a base of igneous rockand the formation of this south end, especially, is impregnated with anetwork of gold-bearing dykes! Why, anyone could see that by the wallsof this cave!" He bent, scooped up a handful of sand, and with eager, shining eyes watched while he spread it over his palm. 

"Just imagine this hollow during one of our terrific sou'westers, Jean, " he went on, looking about him. "The monster billows crashinginto this cavern, rolling the boulders along the bottom, grinding themalong this gold-bearing formation! By Jove, the action is the same asthat in a stamp mill, almost! The gold is freed, becomes mixed withthe sands, and sooner or later is carried out and concentrated alongcertain zones on the Island. "

"But away goes all the mystery of our Island, too, Gregg!" Jean'svoice carried a hint of regret. "That accounts for the strange, rolling sounds we used to hear during the storms, and for the giantballs of stone, and for everything!"

They filled their pockets with samples of the sand to take home toShane, and ascended to the ledge. From thence, with the assistance ofKayak Bill and the rope they mounted one after the other to the top ofthe precipice. 

The old man listened to their story of the cavern in silence, thoughhis eyes were glowing. 

"By . . . Hell, from what yore a-tellin' 'o me, children, you sure havestruck it rich!" he drawled at the end. 

Jean threw her arms impulsively about his neck and landed a kiss on hisear. 

"We all have struck it rich, you old dear! We'll stake the wholelittle Island of Kon Klayu, and if we can ever get to the States to getan outfit, we'll come back here and work it. "

Jean knew that any show of affection caused Kayak acute, wrigglingembarrassment. He backed away from her now, his cheeks fiery red. Tocover his momentary confusion his hazel eye impaled Harlan's raggedback, which was showing the effects of his rapid slide down the cliff. 

"Young man, " he declared with slow solemnity. "The bosom o' yore pantsis showing conside'ble wear an' tear. " Gregg whirled to face him, butbefore he could utter a word, Kayak, now master of himself once more, drawled on: "It never rains but it pours, I reckon. I plumb forgot totell you, Gregg, that just a-fore you drug me up here this afternoon, me and Boreland was a-mouchin round just south of Skeleton Rib anddurned if we didn't come across the old whaleboat, high and dry withcelery bushes a-growin' up around her. She's stove in some, but we canfix her--and I reckon we'll be settin' sail for the mainland in acouple o' weeks!"

CHAPTER XXX

THE PIGEON'S FLIGHT

Wonderful as it was, the discovery of the gold took second place withthe finding of the whaleboat. Gold had no more value than sand on KonKlayu, unless the adventurers were rescued, and the whaleboat meant atleast a chance of rescue, provided it could be made tight enough tofloat. It is true that with summer coming on there would be anabundance of eggs, sea-parrots and later on berries, for already thenorth end of the Island was white with strawberry blossoms--but flourand coffee were now all that remained of the supplies, and the flourwas low in the barrel. Help must come before another winter set in. 

Ellen, in her first joy over the discovery of the whaleboat, had joinedeagerly in the plans which the three men discussed at the cabin. Shesaw herself freed at last from the terrible necessity of summoning PaulKilbuck. The pigeon could fly--she had tested it. In another week shewould have sent it with the message that meant life to her family, butdeath to her own peace and happiness. But now--in her relief the lastvestige of her illness fell from her. She felt strong again, ready totake up her work about the cabin. She found herself, for the firsttime, able to look normally on the smoke-grey creature, seeing it as abird, and not as a hated, yet horribly cherished representative of theWhite Chief of Katleean. 

It was slow work putting the old and battered whaleboat in repair. Ellen had not seen the craft since its recovery, but Shane had told herthat every seam needed recalking. There was no oakum for the purpose, so she tore up some garments that neither she nor Jean could spare. Hespoke casually of a cracked plank or two that would be strengthened bytacking pieces of canvas and tin both inside and out. 

After several days Ellen noticed that Harlan and Kayak Bill ceased totalk of the proposed trip, although Shane still kept up a brave frontand spoke confidently, in her presence at least, of landing atKatleean. She began to feel vaguely uneasy. 

One morning when Jean and Lollie had gone off to gather gull eggs, which were now found in small quantities, Ellen decided to take lunchto the men who were working on the whaleboat a mile and a half away. 

As she approached the spot she saw the upturned hull of the boat lyingupon the sand. No one was in sight. She gasped as she saw thebattered condition of the craft. One end seemed splintered and ajagged hole showed plainly in the bottom. Three other holes had beenmended with tin. The next instant she was aware that the three menwere sitting on the other side of the whaleboat, resting probably. Their voices floated out to her distinctly. 

"We mout as well face the music, boys, " Kayak Bill was saying. "We'reup against the damn'dest bit o' coast in Alasky, and in a rotten tublike this it's a ten to one chance we're takin' but----"

At this point, to Ellen's vexation, the paper containing the lunchburst apart letting half a dozen gull eggs, which formed the principalpart of it, fall to the sand. Instinctively she stooped to gatherthem. The next words that came to her told her that Shane and Kayakwere discussing the unwritten law of the North--the law of the cache. In a land where food is the god supreme, this law has made itself. White and native alike bow before it. It means life. The food cache, no matter where found, is inviolate. Than robbing a cache there is nomore foul or cowardly crime. And ranked with the cache robber is theman who goes back on his promise, or fails, through neglect, to furnishfood to those who depend on him. Death, Ellen knew, is the penalty forboth crimes in the remote places of Alaska. As she went forward sheheard the White Chief's name and some words that were unintelligible toher. Then Shane came to his feet. He was speaking in a voicetoneless, dispassionate, but weighted with finality. 

"I'll do it, but I don't need a gun, by God!" From his pocket he drewhis revolver which he had taken that morning in the hope of getting aseal. He laid it across his other palm. "I have five shots left--butI'm going to do it with my hands on his throat!"

As he finished speaking Harlan and Kayak Bill stood up also. The youngman turned and saw Ellen coming toward them. There was a moment'sdissembling as Shane returned the pistol to his pocket, then he greetedher with a cheeriness which in no way deceived her. 

She said nothing that might betray her comprehension of the situation, but as soon as she could, retraced her steps to the cabin. 

She knew now that while it was in her power to prevent it she couldnever allow her men to put to sea in the unseaworthy whaleboat. Onechance in ten, Kayak had said. Even during the best weather they hadknown on Kon Klayu she herself had seen a gale blow up in two hours. One chance in ten. The words repeated themselves in her brain. And ifthey did make the mainland--what then? "I don't need a gun. . . . I'll do it with my hands on his throat!" . . . The clash between Shaneand the White Chief was inevitable now, no matter how the meeting cameabout. She was enough of a frontier woman to appreciate this. Shewould summon Kilbuck at once, before her men had a chance to risk theirlives, and when she had sent her message, she would tell Shane herwhole miserable story beginning with the night of the Potlatch dance. He might lose faith in her; he might despise her, but she knew that hewould fight for her. 

She took out pen and paper and sat before the table to write hermessage to the White Chief. She must make it so urgent that he wouldcome at once before the whaleboat was launched again. She wroteseveral, but discarded them. At last she was satisfied. Folding thepaper tightly she slipped it into the little finger of a thin kid gloveshe had cut off for the purpose. Then she went out to the pigeon'scage. 

With the fluttering bird in her arms, she ascended the trail to theLookout. At the top the home-made flag flung its tatters out in thesunshine. Ellen noted that it blew toward Katleean. The wind, then, was favorable. The trader should have her message by morning. And intwo more days--she shook her head, not permitting herself to thinkfurther. 

A few minutes she stood looking seaward. Then she held the bird out inboth hands and with all her strength tossed it into the air. 

Fluttering wildly, it recovered its balance, circled narrowly, rose afew feet and--settled down on the tundra before her. It took a fewlimping steps. Ellen was puzzled at its behavior. Perhaps she hadtied the message too tightly about its leg. She would readjust it andurge the bird to flight again. 

With outstretched hands she advanced toward it and tried to imprison itbetween her hands, but the pigeon flapped along ahead of her just outof reach. After some minutes' running back and forth over the shortgrass she caught it, and with her back to the flagpole, sat down on apiece of firewood to loosen the string about the creature's leg. Sointent was she on her work that she did not at once hear the sound ofapproaching footsteps. When she did turn her head quickly it was tolook up into the anger-lighted eyes of her husband. 

He reached roughly across her shoulder and with one hand grasped thepigeon by the legs. With the other he thrust toward her two pieces ofthin writing paper. 

"Now, perhaps, you will explain these!" he said in a voice thatfluctuated strangely from his intense effort to control himself. 

Dazed by the unexpected turn of affairs Ellen rose and mechanicallytook the sheets. They were two half completed notes to the WhiteChief--notes she had discarded. She must have overlooked them when sheburned the others. What had she said in her anxiety to bring Kilbuckimmediately to Kon Klayu? What had she said to arouse Shane's sleepingdevil of jealousy which she had known often during the first years oftheir married life? "Paul Kilbuck, "--the words stood out black in herlarge handwriting. As she read the words she slipped the other paperover them. "I want you now----"

"So you want him _now_, do you?" Mocking fury sounded in Shane'svoice. "You want him now, this fine, squaw-man lover of yours who leftyou to starve! God, what a blind fool I've been--but I can see it allnow. I remember his whisperings to you that day we left Katleean--"He snatched the papers from her hand and thrust them into his pocketwith a bitter laugh. "I'll deliver your loving message myself justbefore I choke--him----"

"Stop, Shane!" Suddenly Ellen was herself again. She knew nothingthat had happened between her and the White Chief was one tenth asdishonorable as the things Shane's jealous imagination pictured. Shestepped over to him and laid a hand on his trembling arm. "I _can_explain these half written notes, " she said quietly. "I can explaineverything, Shane. "

She looked up into his tense, passionate face. He must have seensomething in her blue eyes that claimed him, for he asked morereasonably:

"Tell me, then. "

Beginning with her distrust of the trader she did tell him. She endedwith her attempt that afternoon to send the pigeon with a messageurgent enough to bring the White Chief to their rescue before Shane andhis partners had sailed away in the leaky whaleboat. 

When she finished Shane made no comment. She waited. Was it possiblehe did not believe her? A long minute went by . . . And then another.. . . Obeying an impulse she did not understand she swiftly took thepigeon from him and tossed it once more into the air. 

It readjusted itself and rose confidently. There was a swift movementas Shane whipped his revolver from his pocket. Before the bird hadflown twenty feet he fired. The first shot missed, but the secondbrought the smoke-grey pigeon to the ground. 

A moment later Ellen felt her husband's arms about her. 

"God love you, little fellow. " There was tenderness, contrition and agreat relief in his tones as he laid his cheek against her hair. "Sure, nothing matters now that I know it's myself you're still in lovewith and not that damnable blackguard in Katleean!" . . . 

For an hour they sat on the log below the flagpole, explaining, mutually forgiving, planning. Shane, with Irish logic, chose to see inthe death of the pigeon, a riddance to all adverse circumstances. Heseemed suddenly endowed with a new faith concerning the trip in thewhaleboat and succeeded in imparting some of his enthusiasm to his wife. 

"Luck is with me, El. I tell you I can feel it in my bones. The devilhimself can't keep me from making Katleean now, " he declaredconfidently as they walked hand in hand toward the trail that led downto the cabin. 

As if fortune had at last decided in their favor, the days went sunnilyby. Gulls began to lay by the thousands. Loll was relieved of hishated task of killing sea-parrots, for Harlan discovered that when thebirds began to lay, he could urge them from their tunnel nests with along stick, and capture them. The whaleboat, repaired and recalked, was launched and brought down to the beach before the cabin. All wasin readiness, at last, for the journey. 

The evening before they were to set sail Jean went up the hill to theLookout to help with the last signal fire she and Gregg would buildtogether. The night air, soft and scented, was like a caress to thesenses. Sea and sky were luminous with the rose and amethyst tintingof Alaskan nights. The three plaintive descending notes of thegolden-crown sounded from the alders along the crest of the hill. 

When she reached the top she found a camp-fire glowing above the ashesof past flames. Gregg had preceded her and at her coming he tossed hisold blanket coat to the tundra for her to sit upon. He took his placebeside her. Their usual gay exchange of badinage had failed themtonight. For a time they sat silent, with arm-clasped knees, lookinginto the vermilion heart of the fire. All day the shadow ofapproaching separation had weighed the spirits of each with heartacheand anxiety. Yet each knew that in this hour tonight there was somepotent quality, some indefinable magnetic thing that seemed to chargethe air with sweetly mysterious emotions. 

People of the cities, worn with the artificialities of civilizationfeel the need of some powerful stimulus to arouse emotion: Love isoften born of the wine cup and a dusky, cushioned corner; of music; ofthe dance. When the glamour of these is removed--love dies. Butinborn in the heart of every man is a love-dream--a dream of some dayfinding that mate who shall battle cheerfully side by side with himagainst environment; that mate whose courage, whose understanding, whose faith shall enable him to laugh at the buffetings of Fate and gounafraid down the years with the light of dreams in his eyes. 

Perhaps with Jean and Gregg it was the subconscious knowledge of thefulfillment of this universal dream that kept them happy during all thelean months on Kon Klayu. They had shared elemental things; togetherthey had hunted food that they might live, battled against storms, endured hardships. Together they had sung and laughed and made aplaytime of it all, and slowly there had grown up between them a loveas clean and wholesome as the summer winds that swept the tundra oftheir Island. Hitherto they had felt no need of caresses or words toexpress their joy in one another. They had been happy as children arehappy, with no thought of tomorrow. They had parted each night knowingthat morning would bring them together again. But now . . . 

Jean, looking into the flame of the fire, dropped her chin in hercupped hands. Incongruously, it seemed to her, at that instant thereflashed into her mind the memory of a day on an Island trail, when sheand Gregg had come suddenly on a sea vista of heart-stopping beauty. His eyes had sought hers in quick, silent appreciation of it. Shecould not tell why this simple incident should suddenly seem sointangibly beautiful, but she knew now that it was a moment out of lifethat they two would share forever. There had been other times whenthey had sung together under the golden winter stars--fleeting, rapturous spaces when she had been conscious that not only theirvoices, but in some way their spirits blended. But now . . . He wasgoing away into the gravest danger--into death perhaps. . . . 

She overcame a quick impulse to reach out, to feel him under her hands, to hold him back. 

Gregg rose to place another log on the fire. He brushed his hands oneagainst the other and thrust them deep into his pockets. She felt hisdark eyes compelling her own, and raised her face from her hands. Neither spoke, but for a long tempestuous moment they looked at eachother. Something perilously sweet and magnetic drew her. Even as sherose Gregg was at her side. She felt his arms close about her witheager tenderness. She stood against him within his hold, tremulous, thrilling to his nearness, yet even in the ecstasy of it, realizingthat their separation was now made more poignantly unbearable. 

"Jean . . . " a little hoarsely he said her name, and she was aware thathis heart was beating as wildly as her own. "Jean, you--you are sodear to me! When I come back, could you--will you marry me?"

His arms tightened about her as his head bent to hers. In answer sheraised her face to his, and in the first joyous enchantment of younglove met his kiss. 

Two hours later she lay in her little bunk steeped in glad tumultuousmemories of those last moments on the Lookout. Her spirit fared forthon the wings of her love into the future--a future made beautifulbeyond her girlish dreams. She told herself it was not possible thatother men and women loved as she and Gregg; not Ellen and Shane, . . . Not anyone. . . . All at once she became conscious that in theliving-room her sister and brother-in-law were still talking, thougheveryone else had long since gone to bed. The indistinct murmur oftheir voices mingled with the metallic clicking sound that informed herShane was again oiling his revolver. Then his words came to her withlow distinctness:

"El, I'm going to leave this with you. There are three cartridges leftin it, and if--if--I don't come back and no help comes to you beforeanother winter . . . You know--little fellow--you know what to do. "

CHAPTER XXXI

THE JUSTICE OF THE SEA

Because there is no night in the Northland in June, dawn on Kon Klayuwas but a tender merging of golden twilight into amber and rose andblue, with the sun reappearing within an hour of his setting, kissingthe summer sea into sparking sheets of silver and jade. The littlegreen Island with its girdle of creaming surf had never seemed sobeautiful as in the early morning of the day Shane and Kayak and Harlansailed away in search of help. The electricity of adventure, of hopewas in the air, and the wind was as soft and balmy as a breath fromtropic seas. 

After the last good-bye had been said, Ellen, Jean and Loll stood onthe beach below the cabin watching the little whaleboat riding thelong, gentle swells just outside the line of breakers. The tin patcheson the frail sides glinted bravely in the sunshine, the mended oldChristopher Columbus sail caught the breeze, and slenderly outlinedagainst it were the forms of Shane and Harlan waving a cheerfulfarewell to the watchers. Kayak Bill, his hand on the tiller and hisface turned resolutely away, headed the pathetic craft out into thetreacherously smiling North Pacific and laid his course for Katleean. 

The boat was slowly lost in the sunny silver distance, and the sisters, arm in arm, turned and listlessly followed the trail back to the cabin. Lollie walking on ahead, brushed the tears from his eyes and squaredhis narrow shoulders as if already he had assumed the responsibilitiesof the man of the family. 

The door of the cabin stood open and the sun made a great rectangle oflight on the floor. It was very quiet--and lonely. The loneliness wasnew to both women and it hurt like a pain in their souls. It seemedimpossible that nowhere on the Island were the men to whom they were soaccustomed. 

Ellen began picking up the dishes which were standing as she had leftthem after the early breakfast. Jean helped her. When the work wasover there seemed nothing left but the aching emptiness of waiting. 

The long day wore away at last. Tomorrow, if the wind held favorableand all went well, Ellen and Jean assured each other repeatedly, thewhaleboat would reach Katleean, and in two more days a ship might comefor them. 

At twilight Jean climbed alone to the Lookout. The sunny day had fadedin a grey mist. Afar down toward the south cliffs the tree so like awaiting woman stood out against it in weird, life-like appeal. Theflat desolation of the plateau was marked by the tundra trail that ledacross the Island to the Hut--the trail along which Gregg had so oftencome to meet her. She had not dreamed that life could hold so much ofemptiness nor that longing for a loved one could be so intense as to bealmost a physical pain. She sank down beside the dull ashes of lastnight's fire. The loneliness was almost unbearable. 

From the pocket in her blouse she took a folded paper. Gregg hadpressed it into her hand as he left that morning. She unfolded it. Itwas a verse from some poet unknown to her. "Read it when I am gone, "he had whispered to her. 

 "When I am standing on a mountain crest, Or hold the tiller in the dashing spray, My love of you leaps foaming in my breast, Shouts with the winds and sweeps to their foray; . . . I laugh aloud for love of you, Glad that our love is fellow to rough weather-- No fretful orchid hothoused from the dew, But hale and hardy as the highland heather, Rejoicing in the wind that stings and thrills, Comrade of the ocean, playmate of the hills. "

Before Jean had finished, her shoulders had straightened. She feltstrangely comforted, lifted out of herself. Surely, she thought, nothing but happiness could come of a love like this. Even theelements must be kind to one who loved so. Back in her little bunk shethought of him out on the dark sea in an open boat with only the nightfor a covering, and to calm her fears she repeated over and over againthe words of the verse he had left her. 

Her faith was sorely tried the next morning when she woke to the oldfamiliar roar of wind and wave, and felt the cabin trembling in theblasts of a gale. She saw, with alarm, that Ellen was not in her bed. On investigating, Jean found her out on the beach standing bareheadedwhile the wind wound her garments about her, loosening the strands ofher braided hair and pelting her with rain and flying spray. Ellen wasgazing, in a fascination of dread, at the green-back waves humpingtheir backs like fearful monsters, chasing one another in to the lineof foaming breakers that spent themselves at her feet. 

Jean slipped her hand into her sister's and drew her back to the cabin. When they entered Loll was up making a fire in the Yukon stove. 

The day wore on. The storm increased, though it never became asviolent as some they had experienced during the winter. The directionof the wind was favorable to their sailors. Both women knew that nomake-shift craft could live in such a sea, yet they hoped with anintensity akin to despair that Shane had made the shelter of KatleeanBay before the full fury of the storm was reached. 

Night came on darker than usual, low scudding clouds and flyingwavetops seeming to mingle. Waves sheeted with foam faded ghost-likeinto the tossing greyness. Drifts of rain blew stingingly in from thesea. Cruel and cold the waters appeared now to Jean's anxious eyes, and she found herself repeating again the lines of Gregg's verse, as ifit had become the tenets of her faith. 

The second day of the storm passed as did the first, except thatevening brought a surcease of rain. The clouds in the west began tolift. The sisters drawn closer by their common, mounting dread, slepttogether that night, one on each side of Loll. 

It was long before sleep visited Jean. But presently she was dreamingthat she dangled at the end of a rope over the cliff above the cavern, trying to snatch nuggets from the rocky ledges. The wind blew her bodyhither and thither, as she clutched the jutting crags. She triedvainly to secure a foot or hand-hold. From above Gregg's voice wascalling, calling her plaintively, weirdly. She tried to make out hiswords but could not. The wind blew them far away, and only a faint, wild "Awh-hoo-oo-oo-oo!" came to her. Then her rope began to slip andshe was falling, falling interminably past the face of the precipice, past shags' nests, past thousands of flapping birds who shriekedtauntingly at her. With a convulsive movement she tried to spring tothe rock shelf below her--tried so hard that she woke trembling and ina cold perspiration of dream-fear, with her heart pumping so loudlythat she could hear it. 

The wind had died down and only the muffled beating of the greatcombers on far seaward bars was audible, but--of a sudden she was boltupright in bed, listening with every sense alert. On the island, wherethey three were the only human beings, someone, _something_ wascalling. Above the sound of the sea it came--the haunting, long-drawncry of her dream:

"Awh-oo-oo-oo! Awh-oo-oo-oo!"

But this was no dream. The cry came again, one minute apparently fromthe depths of the ocean, then from the Lookout above the cabin. Itcame nearer, growing more appalling, more mysterious in itspossibilities. It filled her with fearful, inchoate imaginings. . . . 

In an agony of terror she reached out and shook her sister's shoulder. 

"Ellen! Ellen!" she whispered tensely. "Listen! Some one is calling!"

Ellen awakened out of a belated sleep, raised on her elbow and tossedthe long loose hair from her face. 

Again came the unearthly: "Awh-hoo-oo-oo!" rising thin and high anddying away on the falling inflection. 

Ellen's face went paler as she listened. She lingered a moment, thensprang out of bed. Slipping her hand beneath her pillow she drew forththe revolver and started for the door. Jean crawled gently over thesleeping Lollie and followed. 

They stood on the porch in the freshness of the dawn searching thefamiliar landscape for some sign of life. The storm had cleared awayand long scarf-like clouds streaked the intense blue above. Once outin the open Jean's mind was cleared of its phantoms. But a suddenshock went through her when, from just over the bank, the call cameagain. 

Almost immediately there appeared in the trail the strange, totteringform of a man. He advanced haltingly as if spent from some longstruggle, his bare, black head sunk on his chest, his damp garmentsclinging to him. 

"Stop!" Ellen's voice rang out. "Tell me who you are and where you arefrom!"

The man raised his head. At the sight of the two women standing intheir white robes, their loose hair floating about them, a spasm ofmortal terror crossed his dark face. 

"_Kus-ta-ka_! _Kus-ta-ka_!" [1] he yelled, at the same time throwingup his arms and turning to run weakly down the trail. 

Ellen covered the staggering figure with her revolver, but Jean caughther hand. "Don't, El! Be careful!" she cried breathlessly. "Can'tyou see--it's our old friend! It's Swimming Wolf from Katleean!"

She sprang along the trail after him calling: "Wolf! Oh, SwimmingWolf! Don't run away from us! Don't you know your friends?"

The man terrified by something, she knew not what, kept up his feeblerunning gait. She overtook him and grasped his shirt. The big Indiancollapsed on the sand. His hand closed painfully over her arm whilehis wild black eyes searched her face. At the touch his look gaveplace to one of relief. 

"Ugh! Little squaw with white feet!" he gasped. "Swimming Wolf thinkyou all the same dead--think all you people dead. Long time you haveno grub. " He pinched her arm again as if to reassure himself that shewas flesh and blood and not the _kus-ta-ka_, the ghost he had thoughther. He continued: "Long time now, Swimming Wolf no grub too. " Heopened his mouth and pointed a shaking finger down his throat. "Nogrub, no water, no sleep, t'ree day. " He held up three fingers turninghis head slowly from side to side. "T'ree day lost. Plenty tired. "

His voice was weary, plaintive, as only an Indian voice can be. Jeanwondered how she had for one instant attributed his Indian cry tosupernatural powers--she who had often heard him calling to members ofhis tribe along the shores of Katleean. 

Noting his weak condition, the girl checked the eager questions thatrose to her lips, and when Ellen came up, between them they managed toget the worn man to the cabin. They fed him bread and hot sea-parrotbroth. He ate ravenously as much as Ellen thought good for him, butwhen she tried to induce him to lie down in Kayak Bill's bunk, he shookhis head, and started unsteadily for the door. 

"No, no!" he said sharply. "You come along. Other man with SwimmingWolf. "

They followed him down the trail to the beach and turned with himtoward Sunset Point. He paid no attention to their eager questions, but suddenly stopped and pointed ahead. In the maw of the surf insidethe Point a whaleboat was churning. At the sight of it cries of alarmbroke from the women's throats, but again the Indian shook his head. 

"Him not there, " he assured them. "Him up _there_!" He indicated thehigh-tide-line. He lurched along beside them, intent on taking them towhere his friend lay. 

They saw the still dark form lying prone on the edge of the rice-grasswhere Swimming Wolf had dragged it. Ellen, with a bottle of water andsome bread in her hand, ran forward toward the prostrate man. Within afew feet of him, Jean saw her check herself and shrink back. Then, reluctantly the girl thought, she went on. Jean quickened her pace. 

As she approached Ellen turned swiftly to her. 

"Jean!" she said hardly above her breath. "Look!"

Jean gazed with incredulous eyes into the face on the sand. The blackbeard was matted with seawater. Below the bandaged forehead two wearygrey eyes opened. A moment a faint look of surprise crept into them. Then they closed again and the man lay still as death. 

"Oh-o-o!" Jean's voice held an uncontrollable quiver. "Oh-o-o! It'sthe White Chief of Katleean!"

[1] Ghost. 

CHAPTER XXXII

BENEATH THE BLOOD-RED SUN

A week had gone by since the day the White Chief and Swimming Wolf hadbeen cast up on the shores of Kon Klayu. The women, with the help ofthe Indian, had lifted the inert form of the dazed man to a mattress atthe spot where they had found him, and dragged it literally inch byinch along the beach to the cabin. They put him to bed in Kayak's bunkin the little room off the living-room. 

For Ellen and Jean the days were filled with intangible doubt andmounting fear, for no sail whitened off Kon Klayu. Added to the acuteanxiety in regard to their men was now the problem of the White Chiefof Katleean. What queer twist of Fate had tossed the trader, helplessand without food, on the Island where his very life depended on thosehe had left to starve? And, if their men were lost at sea, what wouldhappen to them when Kilbuck recovered his strength?

Gradually, from the disjointed utterances of the superstitious Indianand from their own knowledge of the trader, they were able to piecetogether the story of the White Chief's mishap, --not the story asSwimming Wolf knew it, tinged with eerie Thlinget superstition andmystery--but the prosaic version of the white man, who sees everythingthrough logical eyes, and is ever explaining away all that ismysterious in life and much that is interesting. 

The White Chief, sometimes going for months without liquor, had, asthey knew, periods when he drank as no other man in all Alaska. Curiously enough, he never gave way to his desire while at Katleean, but with one faithful native to attend him, he would go aboard somevisiting vessel, and there sink himself into the oblivion brought aboutby quantities of hootch. 

It was in the latter part of May that a schooner, the _Silver Fox_, came to anchor in the Bay of Katleean. The owner and captain was aGerman, bound for Cook's Inlet with a load of gasoline and enoughequipment to start an illicit still at Turn-again-arm. Paul Kilbuck, after nearly a year of abstinence, succumbed to his craving, and withSwimming Wolf, sought the cabin of the _Silver Fox_. After two days ofthe German's liquid hospitality, he was ready for any mad adventure. Doubtless the thought of Ellen and her family must have been with himduring the winter. Perhaps he had some inchoate drunken plan ofseeking her when he put to sea with the potvaliant captain of the_Silver Fox_; but six hours from the post he collapsed in a stupor onthe captain's bunk. 

Tales of the North are replete with instances of the incrediblerecklessness of men drunk on the pale liquor of that land--men who, sailing along the dangerous coast, lash the wheels of their vessels, and leaving all sail set, go below for a day's carousal; men who drainthe very liquid from the compass to satisfy their burning thirst whenhootch is gone. So it was no surprise to the women to learn that thestorm which swept the Island so soon after the departure of the threemen, had broken upon the _Silver Fox_ when all hands, except thefaithful Swimming Wolf, were too far gone in drink to man the craft. 

As he talked, the Indian, with expressive eyes and hands, acted outeach step of his story. He told how the wind increased; how he lashedthe wheel and all alone tried to reef the bellying canvass, letting itfall as it would at last. With a few words and many dramatic gestures, he made known how the trader, roused from a two-day stupor by thepitching of the vessel and the banging of the boom sticks, hadstaggered up out of the cabin, and been struck by the heavily swingingboom of the mainsail. 

The captain and the three sailors crawled to the deck soon after, wherethe freshness of the rising gale undoubtedly cleared their brainssomewhat. They tried to make things ship-shape to weather the storm. The captain was just about to cut the tow-line that still bound thetrader's whaleboat to the stern of the _Silver Fox_, when suddenlyvolumes of black smoke came pouring out of the cabin. 

Swimming Wolf was never able to give a white man's reason which wouldexplain the fire that started in the hold of the schooner where thegasoline was stored. He swore it was the _kus-ta-ka_ who kindled theflame, the _kus-ta-ka_ who knocked the White Chief on the head and madehim fall "all same dead. " That he finally got the trader into thewhaleboat and escaped the burning vessel while the crew departed intheir own small boat was evident. There was but one oar, and the craftwas blown hither and thither on the tossing sea at the wind's will. Inthe dawn of the third day Swimming Wolf had been able to beach it onthe rocky shore off which he found himself. 

The Indian had no idea where he was landing, and when he saw thewhite-robed figures appear on the rickety porch of the cabin, it wasnot surprising that he thought them ghosts. 

Further questioning of Swimming Wolf revealed the fact that atKatleean, two drunken sailors had run the _Hoonah_ ashore in the lagoonon one of the highest tides of the fall. Though uninjured, it wouldhave required some work to get the little craft off again; so there, evidently, she had remained. 

"But Swimming Wolf, why didn't the White Chief get another boat andcome with our provisions? Why didn't the Indians come for us? Didn'tanyone care whether we starved or not?"

The Wolf looked at Ellen with that stolid, blank expression an Indianassumes when he does not wish to be questioned. 

"Me dun know. Me dun know. " He shook his head. "Indian have no boat. Kilbuck, he Big Chief. He all time say: 'Mind you business or Indianget no grub. Tomorrow I go. ' He all time say 'Tomorrow. '"

Tomorrow! From the lips of Kayak Bill who knew his Alaska, Ellen andJean knew what tragedies lie behind that word. From waiting on windand tide and the next steamer to go someplace, from waiting on summeror winter to do something, from waiting on an indifferent government toact on something, people of the North have found that Alaska has becomeessentially a Land of Tomorrow! A month in Alaska becomes as a day inthe States. 

Humanity demanded that the two women do their best for the man who hadbrought about their present perilous situation, though he had forfeitedall claim to womanly sympathy. Ellen could not bring herself to gonear the White Chief after he was placed in Kayak's bunk, but shedirected Swimming Wolf, who nursed and fed him. At first Kilbuck layin a stupor, but suddenly, at the end of twenty-four hours, he came outof his daze. Jean, going into his room, encountered his narrow greyeyes looking up at her with their normal expression. 

He recovered quickly from the blow on the head, and on a diet of breadand broth rapidly regained his strength. The women avoided himwhenever possible, but Loll, on whom once more they were dependent forsea-parrots, found time to sit beside him, asking about his friends atKatleean, and in turn telling the trader all his small affairs of theday. As time went by he must have given the man a fair idea of thestruggle for existence during the winter on Kon Klayu. 

Kilbuck, for the most part, was silent. He made no effort to explainhis failure to keep his promises. His strange, grey eyes, whenever itwas possible, followed the movements of Ellen and Jean. Sometimes thewomen could hear him, indistinctly, questioning Lollie. 

The fourth day Swimming Wolf assisted him to the porch where he satlooking a long time at the sun-kissed sea. The fifth day, with theIndian's help, he took a walk on the beach. What he thought of thesituation Ellen and Jean had no means of knowing, but as they watchedhim rapidly regaining his old arrogant manner, vague fears creptinsiduously into their minds. At the end of the week he was issuinghis orders to Swimming Wolf with all the ease and certainty of one insupreme command. 

One afternoon Ellen sat on the porch trying to piece together theremnants of a little shirt for Loll. Jean and the boy were off withSwimming Wolf gathering food. The White Chief had gone to his roomsome time before. Ellen's heart was heavy with anxiety for herhusband. If he were alive, he should by now have returned to her. Ifhe were dead. . . . For some minutes she was oblivious to all abouther as she strove to thrust this thought from her mind. The incipientmenace of the White Chief's presence hovered about her, though so farhe had never by word or look betrayed any sentimental interest in hersince his advent on the Island. Perhaps by now, she told herselfhopefully, time and his illness had changed him for the better. Perhaps----

Something caused her to turn her head toward the cabin door back ofher. Against the portal stood the White Chief. His hand was hookedbeneath his scarlet belt in the old familiar manner. His narrow, paleeyes were fastened upon her in a way she had known in Katleean. Shefelt suddenly that he had taken in every detail of her appearance--herheavy braided hair, her worn and faded blouse, her short ragged skirt, and her feet incased in home-made moccasins of canvas. She felt a rushof hot blood rising to her hair. He noted it and smiled, his sardonic, thin-lipped smile. The peculiar warmth that crept into his eyes causedEllen's heart to contract with a realization of appallingpossibilities. A small, inward panic took possession of her. 

She rose abruptly and ran swiftly up the hillside trail to the Lookout. She knew now that she was not dealing with a sick man. She and hersister were practically at the mercy of Paul Kilbuck. 

She resolved to keep her suspicions from Jean as long as possible, butthat evening as they were sitting together in the living-room, afterLollie had climbed into bed, the girl kept glancing apprehensivelytoward the closed door that shut off the sleeping place of the trader. 

"Ellen, " she said, hardly above a whisper. "I don't think he's as illnow as he would have us believe. " She nodded toward the closed door. "We ought to ask him to move over to the Hut with Swimming Wolfnow. . . . Ellen--I'm growing dreadfully afraid of him. . . . Oh!"She started nervously at a sound from the other room. 

"I wish we had some way of locking that door. " In a low voice Ellenthus admitted her own uneasiness, while her gaze wandered about theroom. "We might put the table in front of it, and then if he did tryto come through in the night, we would hear him. "

Cautiously the two women lifted the table and placed the inadequatebarrier across the door. 

"From now on, Jean, only one of us will sleep, while the otherwatches--just to be ready, you know. If he makes one suspiciousmove--" she broke off and patted almost lovingly the revolver she haddrawn from an inside pocket of her blouse. 

Noting the look of fear that had crept into Jean's eyes since hersuspicions had been confirmed, Ellen added: "But it won't be muchlonger, Jeanie, this waiting. Surely Shane will come in a day or two. It's nearly the twenty-first of June. "

The twenty-first of June, the longest and most beautiful day of theyear in the North, was also the anniversary of Ellen's wedding. Neverduring the last ten years had Shane forgotten it. Never had he failedto bring her some little surprise, to arrange some extra pleasure forher. For the past two weeks this thought had been with Ellenconstantly, comforting her, promising her. By some complex, womanishprocess she had come to believe that on the twenty-first of June Shane, if alive, _must_ come to her. As she and Jean lay awake whisperingduring the long, light nights, she had instilled some of her faith intothe girl's mind. If they could but keep the trader from any untowardaction until then, they both felt that all would be well. 

During the days that followed the sisters never left each other's side. Swimming Wolf and Lollie procured the food. The Wolf chopped the woodand attended to other like duties about the cabin. The White Chief didnothing, except lounge on Kayak's bunk. In response to Ellen'ssuggestion that he move to the Hut on the other side of the Island hehad merely looked into her eyes and smiled. 

Since recovering his strength he had begun to take long walks about thebeaches. Ellen feared that sometime he might come upon their cavernand learn the secret of the gold of Kon Klayu, but Jean assured herthat there was no approach from either side of the precipice. The onlyway to the cave lay by way of the cleft. 

As time dragged on the strain of uncertainty became almost more thanthe women could bear. Sometimes as they sat about the table eating thewild food which was their only sustenance now, Ellen could hardlycontrol her impulse to hurl at the enigmatic man opposite her thequestions that rose to her lips. Why was he so silent? For what washe waiting? What did he think of their situation? What did he mean todo with them?

She realized that they could not go on indefinitely as they were now. _Something_ must happen to relieve the tension. She had reached apoint where any word, any action that might give her a clew to thetrader's intentions, was welcome. She began to long intensely that hemight do something which would give her an excuse to use the revolvershe carried constantly beneath her blouse. 

But beyond looks and an occasional cryptic smile, he did nothing toalarm either of the women. Yet his very silence and inaction were moreominous than threats. He instilled in them a crawling dread, a growingterror and uncertainty that was worse than anything they had hithertoknown. 

The twenty-first of June dawned beautiful and clear. It had beenEllen's turn to watch all night and she was a-stir early, happier andmore cheerful than she had been for months. Today--today Shane mustcome. She was sure he would come. He had never failed her, She wokeJean and Loll, and with that undying instinct which prompts every truewoman to make a feast for her returning man, Ellen prepared an extraamount of the poor fare at her command: gumboot hash, boiled eggs andsea-parrot. 

Shortly after the mid-day meal the White Chief, now fully recovered, went off with Swimming Wolf in the direction of the south cliffs. Ellen with her sister and Lollie climbed hopefully to the Lookout tobegin their watching. 

In the bright sunshine the sea below heaved gently and stretched awayto the horizon where, today, the dim outline of the amethyst rangeshowed. Afar out the smoke of a west-bound steamer smudged the skyfaintly, lending a suggestion of human nearness to the scene thatcheered the waiting ones. Nearly three weeks had gone by since the menhad left the Island, and the weather, with the exception of the onestorm, had been calm. Today, certainly, Shane would come--if he werealive. 

Eagerly, hopefully they talked of his arrival as they sat scanning theocean toward Katleean. The soft breeze died away. The sea took on thesmooth shimmer of undulating satin. From afternoon down to sunset theday grew in beauty. 

Time went by and the passing of each hour lessened somewhat the measureof their blind faith and hope. Their talk became desultory. The blueand silver of afternoon gave way to the blue and gold of approachingevening. The tide came in and the amber sky took on the luminous tintsof rose and jade, cobalt and orange. The heaving, chameleon sea, unruffled by a breath of wind, gave back the colors quivering, burnished, opalescent, like the bowl of an abalone shell. They, on theLookout, felt themselves alone inside the tinted bubble of the world. Ellen's day was waning in an enthralling splendor that rendered thewatchers speechless; it numbed them by its exquisite beauty soincongruous with their own growing sense of hopelessness. Ellen's daywas waning, and yet there was no sign of Shane. 

From the pole on the Lookout the home-made flag hung in patheticbleached tatters, like lifeless grey hair down the back of an oldwoman. Beneath it, on driftwood left over from the signal fires, satthe watchers. A faint breath from the dead ashes mingled with thefreshness of the evening air and added an indefinable touch ofloneliness. Little Loll, tired out from his long, vain watching, curled up against Ellen's knee and went to sleep. Shags, dark andwitch-like against the glowing sky, flew in long, low lines toward thecliffs. There was no sound except the eternal murmur of the surf. 

The opal tints deepened, . . . Then faded to a dull amethyst. Justabove the line of the sea the blood-red sun stood out against the hazelike an immense weirdly-luminous balloon. The women watched itsinking, . . . Sinking. It seemed pregnant with awesome, universalmysteries--this dully-growing crimson ball of the sun whose descentmarked the close of the day. 

"Oh, Jeanie, Jeanie!" Suddenly the low cry quivered on the hush of thenight. Ellen's brave spirit had succumbed at last to the awful, beautiful, loneliness. She sank her head on her sister's shoulder andclasping her arms about Jean, vainly tried to still the surge of griefthat shook her. 

"Jeanie!" she sobbed. "He's dead. Shane--my husband--is dead! If--ifhe were living--he would have come--to me--today!"

The tattered flag on the pole above stirred to an awakeningbreeze. . . . The midnight sun touched the rim of the sea, andlingered to kiss with blood-red lips the cruel waters that have takenmany men. . . . Then it doubled back on its track and slowly, perceptibly, rose again, as if reluctant to lose sight of the lonelyLookout where Lollie, fully awake now, was trying to gather two sobbingwomen into his thin, little-boy arms. 

CHAPTER XXXIII

ANCHORS WEIGHED

An hour later, Ellen, worn out by the vigil of the night before and thelong watching on the Lookout, lay on the blankets of her bed fullydressed. Lollie slumbered beside her, his tumbled red head in thecrook of his arm. It was Jean's night to watch, and she sat before thetable, the revolver ready to her hand. Her shoulders drooped and hereyes were heavy-lidded and swollen from weeping. She rested her elbowson the table and dropped her face in her hands. Numbed by their griefand disappointment, both women for the time being had relaxed theircaution, and for the first time in days, the table had not been placedacross the closed door of the White Chief's room. 

For an hour the girl sat immovable. . . . Then she glanced up at theclock. It had stopped. Ellen had forgotten to wind it. Jean wondereddully how they were now to tell the time. There was no other timepieceon the Island. But time didn't matter. Nothing mattered now. Shedropped her face again in her hands. . . . Her head was veryheavy. . . . Her arms slipped slowly until they rested on thetable. . . . Her head settled forward until it lay upon them. . . . There came a long, tired sigh, and then the regular breathing of thesleeper. . . . 

The sun of late morning was streaming in through the little northwindow when the door off the living-room softly opened. The tallfigure of the White Chief stood a moment as he looked in at the quietforms before him. A gleam of triumph showed in his narrow eyes as theycame to rest on the pistol lying before the dark bowed head of the girlat the table. His nostrils twitched and his lip lifted in his wolfishsmile. He tip-toed cautiously until his avid hand closed on the weapon. 

In the middle of the room he paused, and with an air of satisfactionturned it over and over in his hands. There was a movement on the bedin the corner, and abruptly Ellen sat upright, her wide gaze on the manbefore her. 

"Good morning!" He smiled at her derisively. His instinct foreffective poses asserting itself, he began showing off his aptitudewith the revolver. He twirled it, with elaborate carelessness, on histrigger finger, and with one movement of his wrist, stopped it, at thesame time drawing a bead on the shining gold-scales above the window. 

"I've been trying to get my hands on this for days, " he saidconversationally, turning to her again. "Your aim is a little too surefor me to take any chances. " He looked at the weapon in his hand. "You know, my dear, I have never really believed in that popularfallacy concerning women and force--that a club and long hair gotogether. Still, you never can tell. . . . As a persuader this is abit better than a club, but--" he shrugged his shoulderscontemptuously, "I'll not need it--here. " He extracted the threecartridges from the revolver and tossed it easily to the bed. 

"Oh-o-o Ellen!" Jean's despairing voice struck through the room as shewoke and found the pistol gone. 

The trader glanced from one to the other. "I am indeed a fortunateman, " he laughed, "to be cast upon an island with two charming women. Some might think it an embarrassment of riches--but I. . . . " Heallowed a significant silence to sink in. 

Ellen had risen from the bed and stood beside her sister, a handresting protectingly on the girl's shoulder. The White Chief crossedto the table and seated himself on the edge of it, one foot swingingfree. 

"You're both going to think a lot of me before we're taken off KonKlayu, " he told them. "Oh, yes, we'll be taken off, my dears, but notby your husband, Mrs. Boreland. " He ignored Ellen's cry and proceeded:

"I was a little afraid the first week that he might, by sheer Irishluck, have escaped the storm and be turning up here--but it's too latenow. I'll wager you're a widow. "

He seemed to be enjoying himself immensely as his pale eyes lingeredfirst on one and then on the other woman before him. 

"The pale white rose, and the dewy red bud, " his vibrant voice went onmockingly. "Oh, do not be alarmed--" as they both shrank back--"I'mnot going to be crude. I have plenty of time--plenty of time-- Oh, you would, would you!" He broke off with a sudden snarl, as Ellen, infuriated by his manner, snatched up the empty revolver and hurled itwith all her strength at his head. 

He dodged, and with one panther-like movement, leaped at her, his armsclosing like a vice about her shoulders. 

As if maddened by her struggles he crushed her to him and pinioning herwrists in one powerful hand, he embedded the other in her loose hairand brutally drew her head back until her face was upturned to his. Amoment he bent above her, crouching, feral, then he thrust his darkbearded face against hers and shut off her screams. 

At the first intimation of the man's violence Jean had rushed to hersister's aid and was beating him with wildly impotent hands, callingdespairingly to Lollie, to Swimming Wolf, even to Gregg. Then like ayoung tigress she sprang at him from behind trying to get a hold on hisneck so that she might drag him from Ellen. 

But the man was impervious to everything outside the circle of his arms. 

"Oh, Swimming Wolf! Oh, help! Help us!" Jean's desperate screamsrang out again as she heard the sound of hasty footsteps on the porchoutside. 

She leaped for the door, but before her hand touched the latch it wasflung open and against the blinding sunshine loomed the tall figure ofShane Boreland. 

With one bound he crossed the living-room. There came the sound of ablow, . . . Struggling, . . . A sudden choked cry, and Shane's gaspingwords:

"God . . . You cur . . . Come . . . In the open . . . I'll kill you!"

Two writhing, panting figures reeled about the living-room. . . . Theybroke. . . . Shane, livid with rage, side-stepped, and with theagility of a wild-cat leaped again at his adversary. His arm encircledand tightened about the trader's neck. Kilbuck turned in the grip andchest to chest they swayed, strained, their tentative blows renderedimpotent by their very nearness to each other. With twistings of legsand sudden saggings of bodies they sought to get each other prostrate. The hot breath whistling from their gaping mouths made the only humansounds. Wheeling, lurching they fought swiftly about the room, knocking over chairs, . . . The table . . . Sweeping the stove from itsfoundation. Then Shane's ankle turned as his foot encountered thefallen revolver, and he lost his balance. 

In that instant the trader had him down--was upon him, sluggingviciously with both fists. From the first there was no science in thefight. Both men inflamed--one with a long-denied passion for revenge, the other with hatred for one he had wronged, had reverted to theprimitive lust to gouge, to claw, to kill with bare hands. They rolledabout the floor, first one on top, then the other, striking, tearing ateach other's throats, their very blind fury defeating theirpurpose. . . . Again a turn found them on their feet, and likesnarling beasts they bounded back to the attack. Shirts were torn fromtheir backs, warm, gummy blood on their sweating bared bodies renderedtheir grips insecure. . . . After what seemed to the watchers afrenzied eternity, their efforts began slowly to slacken. Their gripsbecame more feeble, their hoarse rasping gasps for breath morelabored. . . . The Chief attempted groggily to dodge a blow. Shanerecovered his balance, rushed him low, and closed. A moment theyswayed together, then slowly the trader was lifted off his feet; asudden twist of Shane's shoulders, a heave, and the Chief was slammedagainst the edge of the overturned table, his arm striking heavily. Even as he went down Shane was on top of him, his hands fastened in adeath grip about Kilbuck's throat. The man's face began to turnpurple, his pale narrow eyes widened slowly, horribly until they seemedstarting from the sockets. 

Then Jean screamed. 

"Gregg! Kayak! Stop him! Don't let him commit murder!"

The sound of the girl's voice broke the spell that had bound thespectators standing in the doorway. Kayak Bill and Harlan strode intothe cabin and between them tore Boreland from his enemy and placed himon the bed in the corner, where Ellen and Lollie took charge of him. The insensible White Chief was carried into the next room and put inKayak's bunk. Breathing heavily from exertion Kayak Bill stepped backto look at him. 

"That lyin' skunk's so crooked he cain't lay straight in bed, Gregg. Iwas honin' somethin' powerful to horn in on that little shindy--but Ireckon Shane's bunged him up conside'ble, " he drawled with immensesatisfaction, as he leaned over and felt the trader's arm. "'Pearslike he's got a busted flipper, and I know his noggin is sure addled. Get some water, Gregg. I mout as well bring the durned squaw-pirateback to life, 'cause when he's well again, I aim to knock hell outenhim myself----"

Kayak turned to find that his remarks had fallen on the empty air, forGregg and Jean, standing amid the ruins of the dish cupboard, wereoblivious to all the world except each other. His hazel eyes roved tothe bed where Ellen and Loll were welcoming Shane as if he had returnedfrom the dead. Kayak stood a moment. 

"'Pears like I'm playin' a lone hand here, " he said wistfully as hestarted for the water that was to revive the White Chief. 

"Oh, Kayak! Kayak!" came Lollie's shout as he burrowed out frombetween his parents. "It's your turn now to get some lovin'. Wait aminute!" And the little fellow sprang from one end of the bed intoKayak's arms. A second later both Ellen and Jean were welcoming himwith a warmth of affection that sent his new sombrero flying and madehis old hair-seal waistcoat slip half-way off his shoulders. Delightedbut unprepared for such demonstrations, Kayak was at a loss how to meetthem. His cheeks turned fiery red, and though his eyes were glowing hebacked away the moment they released him and began earnestly toreadjust his worn waistcoat. 

"By he--hen, Lady, " he managed to say with some semblance of his oldnonchalance, as he fumbled with a torn buttonhole. "I--I--" he glaredaccusingly at the hair-seal garment, "I believe this durned thingis--is--is a-sufferin' from poverty o' the buttons, or--or maybeenlargement o' the buttonholes!" And in the laughter that greeted hisstatement he went off to care for the White Chief. 

Joy in the reunion and an hour's rest put Shane on his feet again. While the women gathered up their few belongings, they learned how theold whale-boat in which the men had left Kon Klayu had held together, seemingly by a miracle, during the first part of the storm, but laterhad been driven out of its course. When Shane finally landed at acannery fifty miles from Katleean the boat was abandoned and they weretaken to the trading post in the canoes of some fishing Indians. Therethey learned of the White Chief's trip on the _Silver Fox_ and setabout getting the _Hoonah_ off the beach at the lagoon. The tides ofJune being higher than usual they had little trouble, but it took daysto calk the seams and put the schooner in shape for the trip. 

"We were within fifty miles of here yesterday when the wind died down, El, " Shane told his wife, "and myself doing my best to make it on ourwedding anniversary! I knew you'd be expecting me, little fellow. " Hepatted her hand. "Well, " he continued after some strictly personalremarks, "I suppose we'll have to take Kilbuck to a doctor before we goto Katleean--damn him, I ought to kill him, though. There's an M. D. Atthe cannery this summer. I want the blackguard fixed up so I cansettle with him later. " He drew a new corn cob from his pocket andcramming it with tobacco, lit it. "But I tell you, girls, " he went onbetween puffs of the keenest enjoyment, "Kayak and I had the biggestsurprise of our lives the day before we left Katleean!" He turned toGregg and made a ludicrous confidential attempt to wink a swollen eye. "A cannery steamer put in and landed no less person than his royalnibs--the president of the Alaska Fur and Trading Company!"

This announcement was received with no particular enthusiasm by eitherof his listeners. He went on:

"We got close as paving bricks right off the reel, and he's going tofinance the mining of Kon Klayu!" He stopped to note the effect ofthis statement. "We left him at the post looking into the businessmethods of the White Chief. The cannery steamer will be back in tendays and we'll all strike out for San Francisco together and get ouroutfit. We'll be back here at Kon Klayu this fall to beginoperations. " There was a dismayed exclamation from Ellen; a delightedone from Jean. "Oh, cheer up, El, " he said to his wife. "You and Iwon't have to come unless we want to. We've already appointed the oldman's son resident manager. He wants the job--is crazy about it infact. Turn around girls, and I'll present him to you--Mr. GreggHarlan, ladies!" With a grand flourish Shane indicated the flushingyoung man. "Why he chose to keep it a secret all these months, hehasn't told us yet, but--perhaps Jean will find out!" Laughing at theincredulous look on Ellen's face he limped out to the shed where KayakBill was doing up samples of ore to take aboard the _Hoonah_ lying justoff the bluff. 

At midnight the schooner was rippling gently over the long swells intoan atmosphere of golden sunset light that flooded the sky and crinkledalong the wavetops in shimmering, mellow orange. Up in the bow of the_Hoonah_ silhouetted against the glow, old Kayak Bill stood alone. Inhis hazel eyes was the wistful look that crept there sometimes when hewatched the domestic happiness of those about him. A-top the cabin bythe mainmast Jean and Gregg stood looking back over the lengtheningstretch of water. Kon Klayu lay, an oblong of jade in the amber light, ringed with a wreath of foam. A single gull winnowed across the visioncalling a wistful question, and from the Lookout the tattered flagflung itself out on the breeze as if in farewell. Jean's happy voicecame to him from where she snuggled in the circle of Harlan's arm. 

Kayak Bill let his gaze wander to the stern where Shane and Ellen stoodtogether at the wheel: Despite Boreland's battered countenance his chinwas up in his old jaunty and debonaire manner. The wind ruffled thehair on his bare head. One hand managed the steering gear. The otherarm lay across his wife's shoulders. 

Kayak, watching shook his head gently. 

"I always hearn tell, " he spoke softly to himself, "that the onlydifference a-tween happy marriages and unhappy ones is that the happyones keeps their bickerin's private like--but I don't know, . . . Idon't know . . . "

A moment more he looked at the prospector and his wife, then he turnedaway and his old eyes gazed out across the tinted ocean spaces to thatsomething which had always seemed to beckon him from beyond the sunsetglow. Lost in his dreaming the old man did not hear Shane's eagervoice as he released the wheel a moment and pointed off the bow towhere, beyond the rim of the sea, lay the northwest coast of Alaska. 

"It's up there in the Valley of the Kuskokwim, El! They've made abrand new strike and are getting ten dollars to the pan!" He lookeddown at her and went on in his most coaxing Irish way. "Darlin', whenwe get Loll in school, and Jean and Gregg and Kayak safely settled onKon Klayu . . . " he hesitated, then finished eagerly, "Sure El, itwould do us the world of good to go up there, little fellow, . . . Justto take a bit of a look. . . . " He straightened, his eyes alight withthe old questing expression, his face turned to the northwest, hisspirit already faring forth across sea and land to the beckoning Valleyof the Kuskokwim.