by night, never resting, snarling on his heels, snapping at his nose, they would stay by
him to the end. How Zing-ha and he felt the blood-lust quicken! The finish would be a
sight to see!
Eager-footed, they took the trail, and even he, Koskoosh, slow of sight and an unversed
tracker, could have followed it blind, it was so wide. Hot were they on the heels of the
chase, reading the grim tragedy, fresh-written, at every step. Now they came to where the
moose had made a stand. Thrice the length of a grown man's body, in every direction, had
the snow been stamped about and uptossed. In the midst were the deep impressions of the
splay-hoofed game, and all about, everywhere, were the lighter footmarks of the wolves.
Some, while their brothers harried the kill, had lain to one side and rested. The fullstretched
impress of their bodies in the snow was as perfect as though made the moment
before. One wolf had been caught in a wild lunge of the maddened victim and trampled
to death. A few bones, well picked, bore witness.
Again, they ceased the uplift of their snowshoes at a second stand. Here the great animal
had fought desperately. Twice had he been dragged down, as the snow attested, and twice
had he shaken his assailants clear and gained footing once more. He had done his task
long since, but none the less was life dear to him. Zing-ha said it was a strange thing, a
moose once down to get free again; but this one certainly had. The shaman would see
signs and wonders in this when they told him.
And yet again, they come to where the moose had made to mount the bank and gain the
timber. But his foes had laid on from behind, till he reared and fell back upon them,
crushing two deep into the snow. It was plain the kill was at hand, for their brothers had
left them untouched. Two more stands were hurried past, brief in time-length and very
close together. The trail was red now, and the clean stride of the great beast had grown
short and slovenly. Then they heard the first sounds of the battle -- not the full-throated
chorus of the chase, but the short, snappy bark which spoke of close quarters and teeth to
flesh. Crawling up the wind, Zing-ha bellied it through the snow, and with him crept he,
Koskoosh, who was to be chief of the tribesmen in the years to come. Together they
shoved aside the under branches of a young spruce and peered forth. It was the end they
saw.
The picture, like all of youth's impressions, was still strong with him, and his dim eyes
watched the end played out as vividly as in that far-off time. Koskoosh marvelled at this,
for in the days which followed, when he was a leader of men and a head of councillors,
he had done great deeds and made his name a curse in the mouths of the Pellys, to say
naught of the strange white man he had killed, knife to knife, in open fight.
For long he pondered on the days of his youth, till the fire died down and the frost bit
deeper. He replenished it with two sticks this time, and gauged his grip on life by what
remained. If Sit-cum-to-ha had only remembered her grandfather, and gathered a larger
armful, his hours would have been longer. It would have been easy. But she was ever a
careless child, and honored not her ancestors from the time the Beaver, son of the son of
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Zing-ha, first cast eyes upon her. Well, what mattered it? Had he not done likewise in his
own quick youth? For a while he listened to the silence. Perhaps the heart of his son
might soften, and he would come back with the dogs to take his old father on with the
tribe to where the caribou ran thick and the fat hung heavy upon them.
He strained his ears, his restless brain for the moment stilled. Not a stir, nothing. He alone
took breath in the midst of the great silence. It was very lonely. Hark! What was that? A
chill passed over his body. The familiar, long-drawn howl broke the void, and it was
close at hand. Then on his darkened eyes was projected the vision of the moose -- the old
bull moose -- the torn flanks and bloody sides, the riddled mane, and the great branching
horns, down low and tossing to the last. He saw the flashing forms of gray, the gleaming
eyes, the lolling tongues, the slavered fangs. And he saw the inexorable circle close in till
it became a dark point in the midst of the stamped snow.
A cold muzzle thrust against his cheek, and at its touch his soul leaped back to the
present. His hand shot into the fire and dragged out a burning faggot. Overcome for the
nonce by his hereditary fear of man, the brute retreated, raising a prolonged call to his
brothers; and greedily they answered, till a ring of crouching, jaw-slobbered gray was
stretched round about. The old man listened to the drawing in of this circle. He waved his
brand wildly, and sniffs turned to snarls; but the panting brutes refused to scatter. Now
one wormed his chest forward, dragging his haunches after, now a second, now a third;
but never a one drew back. Why should he cling to life? he asked, and dropped the
blazing stick into the snow. It sizzled and went out. The circle grunted uneasily, but held
its own. Again he saw the last stand of the old bull moose, and Koskoosh dropped his
head wearily upon his knees. What did it matter after all? Was it not the law of life?
NAM-BOK THE UNVERACIOUS
(First published in Ainslee's Magazine, Aug, 1902)
"A BIDARKA, is it not so? Look! a bidarka, and one man who drives
clumsily with a paddle!"
Old Bask-Wah-Wan rose to her knees, trembling with weakness and
eagerness, and gazed out over the sea.
"Nam-Bok was ever clumsy at the paddle," she maundered reminiscently,
shading the sun from her eyes and staring across the silverspilled water.
"Nam-Bok was ever clumsy. I remember . . ."
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But the women and children laughed loudly, and there was a gentle
mockery in their laughter, and her voice dwindled till her lips moved
without sound.
Koogah lifted his grizzled head from his bone-carving and followed the
path of her eyes. Except when wide yaws took it off its course, a bidarka
was heading in for the beach. Its occupant was paddling with more
strength than dexterity, and made his approach along the zigzag line of
most resistance. Koogah's head dropped to his work again, and on the
ivory tusk between his knees he scratched the dorsal fin of a fish the like
of which never swam in the sea.
"It is doubtless the man from the next village," he said finally, "come to
consult with me about the marking of things on bone. And the man is a
clumsy man. He will never know how."
"It is Nam-Bok," old Bask-Wah-Wan repeated. "Should I not know my
son?" she demanded shrilly. "I say, and I say again, it is Nam-Bok."
"And so thou hast said these many summers," one of the women chided
softly. "Ever when the ice passed out of the sea hast thou sat and watched
through the long day, saying at each chance canoe, 'This is Nam-Bok.'
Nam-Bok is dead, O Bask-Wah-Wan, and the dead do not come back. It
cannot be that the dead come back." "Nam-Bok!" the old woman cried, so
&n
bsp; loud and clear that the whole village was startled and looked at her.
She struggled to her feet and tottered down the sand. She stumbled over a
baby lying in the sun, and the mother hushed its crying and hurled harsh
words after the old woman, who took no notice. The children ran down the
beach in advance of her, and as the man in the bidarka drew closer, nearly
capsizing with one of his ill- directed strokes, the women followed.
Koogah dropped his walrus tusk and went also, leaning heavily upon his
staff, and after him loitered the men in twos and threes.
The bidarka turned broadside and the ripple of surf threatened to swamp it,
only a naked boy ran into the water and pulled the bow high up on the
sand. The man stood up and sent a questing glance along the line of
villagers. A rainbow sweater, dirty and the worse for wear, clung loosely
to his broad shoulders, and a red cotton handkerchief was knotted in sailor
fashion about his throat. A fisherman's tam-o'-shanter on his close-clipped
head, and dungaree trousers and heavy brogans, completed his outfit.
But he was none the less a striking personage to these simple fisherfolk of
the great Yukon Delta, who, all their lives, had stared out on Bering Sea
and in that time seen but two white men,—the census enumerator and a
lost Jesuit priest. They were a poor people, with neither gold in the ground
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25
nor valuable furs in hand, so the whites had passed them afar. Also, the
Yukon, through the thousands of years, had shoaled that portion of the sea
with the detritus of Alaska till vessels grounded out of sight of land. So the
sodden coast, with its long inside reaches and huge mud-land
archipelagoes, was avoided by the ships of men, and the fisherfolk knew
not that such things were.
Koogah, the Bone-Scratcher, retreated backward in sudden haste, tripping
over his staff and falling to the ground. "Nam-Bok!" he cried, as he
scrambled wildly for footing. "Nam-Bok, who was blown off to sea, come
back!"
The men and women shrank away, and the children scuttled off between
their legs. Only Opee-Kwan was brave, as befitted the head man of the
village. He strode forward and gazed long and earnestly at the new-comer.
"It is Nam-Bok," he said at last, and at the conviction in his voice the
women wailed apprehensively and drew farther away.
The lips of the stranger moved indecisively, and his brown throat writhed
and wrestled with unspoken words.
"La, la, it is Nam-Bok," Bask-Wah-Wan croaked, peering up into his face.
"Ever did I say Nam-Bok would come back."
"Ay, it is Nam-Bok come back." This time it was Nam-Bok himself who
spoke, putting a leg over the side of the bidarka and standing with one foot
afloat and one ashore. Again his throat writhed and wrestled as he
grappled after forgotten words. And when the words came forth they were
strange of sound and a spluttering of the lips accompanied the gutturals.
"Greeting, O brothers," he said, "brothers of old time before I went away
with the off-shore wind."
He stepped out with both feet on the sand, and Opee-Kwan waved him
back.
"Thou art dead, Nam-Bok," he said.
Nam-Bok laughed. "I am fat."
"Dead men are not fat," Opee-Kwan confessed. "Thou hast fared well, but
it is strange. No man may mate with the off-shore wind and come back on
the heels of the years."
"I have come back," Nam-Bok answered simply.
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"Mayhap thou art a shadow, then, a passing shadow of the Nam- Bok that
was. Shadows come back."
"I am hungry. Shadows do not eat."
But Opee-Kwan doubted, and brushed his hand across his brow in sore
puzzlement. Nam-Bok was likewise puzzled, and as he looked up and
down the line found no welcome in the eyes of the fisherfolk. The men
and women whispered together. The children stole timidly back among
their elders, and bristling dogs fawned up to him and sniffed suspiciously.
"I bore thee, Nam-Bok, and I gave thee suck when thou west little," Bask-
Wah-Wan whimpered, drawing closer; "and shadow though thou be, or no
shadow, I will give thee to eat now."
Nam-Bok made to come to her, but a growl of fear and menace warned
him back. He said something in a strange tongue which sounded like
"Goddam," and added, "No shadow am I, but a man."
"Who may know concerning the things of mystery?" Opee-Kwan
demanded, half of himself and half of his tribespeople. "We are, and in a
breath we are not. If the man may become shadow, may not the shadow
become man? Nam-Bok was, but is not. This we know, but we do not
know if this be Nam-Bok or the shadow of Nam-Bok."
Nam-Bok cleared his throat and made answer. "In the old time long ago,
thy father's father, Opee-Kwan, went away and came back on the heels of
the years. Nor was a place by the fire denied him. It is said . . ." He paused
significantly, and they hung on his utterance. "It is said," he repeated,
driving his point home with deliberation, "that Sipsip, his klooch, bore
him two sons after he came back."
"But he had no doings with the off-shore wind," Opee-Kwan retorted. "He
went away into the heart of the land, and it is in the nature of things that a
man may go on and on into the land."
"And likewise the sea. But that is neither here nor there. It is said . that thy
father's father told strange tales of the things he saw."
"Ay, strange tales he told."
"I, too, have strange tales to tell," Nam-Bok stated insidiously. And, as
they wavered, "And presents likewise."
He pulled from the bidarka a shawl, marvellous of texture and color, and
flung it about his mother's shoulders. The women voiced a collective sigh
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of admiration, and old Bask-Wah-Wan ruffled the gay material and patted
it and crooned in childish joy.
"He has tales to tell," Koogah muttered. "And presents," a woman
seconded.
And Opee-Kwan knew that his people were eager, and further, he was
aware himself of an itching curiosity concerning those untold tales. "The
fishing has been good," he said judiciously, ''and we have oil in plenty. So
come, Nam-Bok, let us feast."
Two of the men hoisted the bidarka on their shoulders and carried it up to
the fire. Nam-Bok walked by the side of Opee-Kwan, and the villagers
followed after, save those of the women who lingered a moment to lay
caressing fingers on the shawl.
There was little talk while the feast went on, though many and curious
were the glances stolen at the son of Bask-Wah-Wan. This embarrassed
him—not because he was modest of spirit, however, but for the fact that
the stench of the seal-oil had robbed him of his appetite, and that he
keenly desired to conceal his feelings on the subject.
"Eat; thou art hungry," Opee-Kwan commanded, and Nam-Bok shut both
his eyes a
nd shoved his fist into the big pot of putrid fish.
"La la, be not ashamed. The seal were many this year, and strong men are
ever hungry." And Bask-Wah-Wan sopped a particularly offensive chunk
of salmon into the oil and passed it fondly and dripping to her son.
In despair, when premonitory symptoms warned him that his stomach was
not so strong as of old, he filled his pipe and struck up a smoke. The
people fed on noisily and watched. Few of them could boast of intimate
acquaintance with the precious weed, though now and again small
quantities and abominable qualities were obtained in trade from the
Eskimos to the northward. Koogah, sitting next to him indicated that he
was not averse to taking a draw, and between two mouthfuls, with the oil
thick on his lips, sucked away at the amber stem. And thereupon Nam-Bok
held his stomach with a shaky hand and declined the proffered return.
Koogah could keep the pipe, he said, for he had intended so to honor him
from the first. And the people licked their fingers and approved of his
liberality.
Opee-Kwan rose to his feet. "And now, O Nam-Bok, the feast is ended,
and we would listen concerning the strange things you have seen. "
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The fisherfolk applauded with their hands, and gathering about them their
work, prepared to listen. The men were busy fashioning spears and
carving on ivory, while the women scraped the fat from the hides of the
hair seal and made them pliable or sewed muclucs with threads of sinew.
Nam-Bok's eyes roved over the scene, but there was not the charm about it
that his recollection had warranted him to expect. During the years of his
wandering he had looked forward to just this scene, and now that it had
come he was disappointed. It was a bare and meagre life, he deemed, and
not to be compared to the one to which he had become used. Still, he
would open their eyes a bit, and his own eyes sparkled at the thought.
"Brother," he began, with the smug complacency of a man about to relate
the big things he has done, `'it was late summer of many summers back,
with much such weather as this promises to be, when I went away. You all
remember the day, when the gulls flew low, and the wind blew strong
from the land, and I could not hold my bidarka against it. I tied the
Children of the Frost Page 4