gripped him by the arm and kindly but firmly shook his senses back into
him.
"Come, Nam-Bok, arise!" he commanded. "It be time."
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"Another feast?" Nam-Bok cried. "Nay, I am not hungry. Go on with the
eating and let me sleep."
"Time to be gone!" Koogah thundered.
But Opee-Kwan spoke more softly. "Thou west bidarka-mate with me
when we were boys," he said. "Together we first chased the seal and drew
the salmon from the traps. And thou didst drag me back to life, Nam-Bok,
when the sea closed over me and I was sucked down to the black rocks.
Together we hungered and bore the chill of the frost, and together we
crawled beneath the one fur and lay close to each other. And because of
these things, and the kindness in which I stood to thee, it grieves me sore
that thou shouldst return such a remarkable liar. We cannot understand,
and our heads be dizzy with the things thou hast spoken. It is not good,
and there has been much talk in the council. Wherefore we send thee
away, that our heads may remain clear and strong and be not troubled by
the unaccountable things."
"These things thou speakest of be shadows," Koogah took up the strain.
"From the shadow-world thou hast brought them, and to the shadow-world
thou must return them. Thy bidarka be ready, and the tribespeople wait.
They may not sleep until thou art gone."
Nam-Bok was perplexed, but hearkened to the voice of the head man.
"If thou art Nam-Bok," Opee-Kwan was saying, '`thou art a fearful and
most wonderful liar; if thou art the shadow of Nam-Bok, then thou
speakest of shadows, concerning which it is not good that living men have
knowledge. This great village thou hast spoken of we deem the: village of
shadows. Therein flutter the souls of the dead; for the dead be many and
the living few. The dead do not come back. Never have the dead come
back—save thou with thy wonder-tales. It is not meet that the dead come
back, and should we permit it, great trouble may be our portion."
Nam-Bok knew his people well and was aware that the voice of the
council was supreme. So he allowed himself to be led down to the water's
edge, where he was put aboard his bidarka and a paddle thrust into his
hand. A stray wild-fowl honked somewhere to seaward, and the surf broke
limply and hollowly on the sand. A dim twilight brooded over land and
water, and in the north the sun smouldered, vague and troubled, and
draped about with blood-red mists. The gulls were flying low. The offshore
wind blew keen and chill, and the black-massed clouds behind it
gave promise of bitter weather.
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"Out of the sea thou camest," Opee-Kwan chanted oracularly, "and back
into the sea thou goest. Thus is balance achieved and all things brought to
law."
Bask-Wah-Wan limped to the froth-mark and cried, "I bless thee, Nam-
Bok, for that thou remembered me."
But Koogah, shoving Nam-Bok clear of the beach, tore the shawl from her
shoulders and flung it into the bidarka.
"It is cold in the long nights," she wailed; "and the frost is prone to nip old
bones."
"The thing is a shadow," the bone-scratcher answered, ''and shadows
cannot keep thee warm."
Nam-Bok stood up that his voice might carry. HO Bask-Wah-Wan,
mother that bore me!" he called. "Listen to the words of Nam-Bok, thy
son. There be room in his bidarka for two, and he would that thou camest
with him. For his journey is to where there are fish and oil in plenty. There
the frost comes not, and life is easy, and the things of iron do the work of
men. Wilt thou come, O Bask-Wah-Wan ?"
She debated a moment, while the bidarka drifted swiftly from her, then
raised her voice to a quavering treble. "I am old, Nam-Bok, and soon I
shall pass down among the shadows. But I have no wish to go before my
time. I am old, Nam-Bok, and I am afraid."
A shaft of light shot across the dim-lit sea and wrapped boat and man in a
splendor of red and gold. Then a hush fell upon the fisherfolk, and only
was heard the moan of the off-shore wind and the cries of the gulls flying
low in the air.
THE MASTER OF MYSTERY
(First published in Out West, Sept, 1902)
THERE was complaint in the village. The women chattered together with
shrill, high-pitched voices. The men were glum and doubtful of aspect,
and the very dogs wandered dubiously about, alarmed in vague ways by
the unrest of the camp, and ready to take to the woods on the first outbreak
of trouble. The air was filled with suspicion. No man was sure of his
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38
neighbor, and each was conscious that he stood in like unsureness with his
fellows. Even the children were oppressed and solemn, and lime Di Ya,
the cause of it all, had been soundly thrashed, first by Hooniah, his
mother, and then by his father, Bawn, and was now whimpering and
looking pessimistically out upon the world from the shelter of the big
overturned canoe on the beach.
And to make the matter worse, Scundoo, the shaman, was in disgrace, and
his known magic could not be called upon to seek out the evil-doer.
Forsooth, a month gone, he had promised a fair south wind so that the
tribe might journey to the potlatch at Tonkin, where Taku Jim was giving
away the savings of twenty years; and when the day came, lo, a grievous
north wind blew, and of the first three canoes to venture forth, one was
swamped in the big seas, and two were pounded to pieces on the rocks,
and a child was drowned. He had pulled the string of the wrong bag, he
explained,—a mistake. But the people refused to listen; the offerings of
meat and fish and fur ceased to come to his door; and he sulked within—
so they thought, fasting in biker penance; in reality, eating generously
from his well- stored cache and meditating upon the fickleness of the mob.
The blankets of Hooniah were missing. They were good blankets, of most
marvellous thickness and warmth, and her pride in them was greatened in
that they had been come by so cheaply. Ty-Kwan, of the next village but
one, was a fool to have so easily parted with them. But then, she did not
know they were the blankets of the murdered Englishman, because of
whose take-off the United States cutter nosed along the coast for a time,
while its launches puffed and snorted among the secret inlets. And not
knowing that Ty-Kwan had disposed of them in haste so that his own
people might not have to render account to the Government, Hooniah's
pride was unshaken. And because the women envied her, her pride was
without end and boundless, till it filled the village and spilled over along
the Alaskan shore from Dutch Harbor to St. Mary's. Her totem had
become justly celebrated, and her name known on the lips of men
wherever men fished and feasted, what of the blankets and their
ma
rvellous thickness and warmth. It was a most mysterious happening, the
manner of their going.
"I but stretched them up in the sun by the sidewall of the house," Hooniah
disclaimed for the thousandth time to her Thlinget sisters. "I but stretched
them up and turned my back; for Di Ya, dough-thief and eater of raw flour
that he is, with head into the big iron pot, overturned and stuck there, his
legs waving like the branches of a forest tree in the wind. And I did but
drag him out and twice knock his head against the door for riper
understanding, and behold, the blankets were not!"
"The blankets were not!" the women repeated in awed whispers.
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"A great loss," one added. A second, "Never were there such blankets."
And a third, "We be sorry, Hooniah, for thy loss." Yet each woman of
them was glad in her heart that the odious, dissension- breeding blankets
were gone.
"I but stretched them up in the sun," Hooniah began for the thousand and
first time.
"Yea, yea," Bawn spoke up, wearied. "But there were no gossips in the
village from other places. Wherefore it be plain that some of our own
tribespeople have laid unlawful hand upon the blankets."
"How can that be, O Bawn?" the women chorused indignantly. "Who
should there be?"
"Then has there been witchcraft," Bawn continued stolidly enough, though
he stole a sly glance at their faces.
"Witchcraft!" And at the dread word their voices hushed and each looked
fearfully at each.
"Ay," Hooniah affirmed, the latent malignancy of her nature flashing into
a moment's exultation. "And word has been sent to Klok- No-Ton, and
strong paddles. Truly shall he be here with the afternoon tide."
The little groups broke up, and fear descended upon the village. Of all
misfortune, witchcraft was the most appalling. With the intangible and
unseen things only the shamans could cope, and neither man, woman, nor
child could know, until the moment of ordeal, whether devils possessed
their souls or not. And of all shamans, Klok-No-Ton, who dwelt in the
next village, was the most terrible. None found more evil spirits than he,
none visited his victims with more frightful tortures. Even had he found,
once, a devil residing within the body of a three-months babe—a most
obstinate devil which could only be driven out when the babe had lain for
a week on thorns and Driers. The body was thrown into the sea after that,
but the waves tossed it back again and again as a curse upon the village,
nor did it finally go away till two strong men were staked out at low tide
and drowned.
And Hooniah had sent for this Klok-No-Ton. Better had it been if
Scundoo, their own shaman, were undisgraced. For he had ever a gentler
way, and he had been known to drive forth two devils from a man who
afterward begat seven healthy children. But Klok-No-Ton! They
shuddered with dire foreboding at thought of him, and each one felt
himself the centre of accusing eyes, and looked accusingly upon his
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fellows—each one and all, save Sime, and Sime was a scoffer whose evil
end was destined with a certitude his successes could not shake.
"Hoh! Hoh !" he laughed. "Devils and Klok-No-Ton!—than whom no
greater devil can be found in Thlinket Land."
"Thou fool! Even now he cometh with witcheries and sorceries; so beware
thy tongue, lest evil befall thee and thy days be short in the land!"
So spoke La-lah, otherwise the Cheater, and Sime laughed scornfully.
"I am Sime, unused to fear, unafraid of the dark. I am a strong man, as my
father before me, and my head is clear. Nor you nor I have seen with our
eyes the unseen evil things—"
"But Scundoo hash," La-lah made answer. "And likewise Klok-No- Ton.
This we know."
"How cost thou know, son of a fool?" Sime thundered, the choleric blood
darkening his thick bull neck.
"By the word of their mouths—even so."
Sime snorted. "A shaman is only a man. May not his words be crooked,
even as shine and mine? Bah! Bah! And once more, bah! And this for thy
shamans and thy shamans' devils ! and this! and this!"
And snapping his fingers to right and left, Sime strode through the onlookers,
who made overzealous and fearsome way for him.
"A good fisher and strong hunter, but an evil man," said one.
"Yet does he flourish," speculated another.
"Wherefore be thou evil and flourish," Sime retorted over his shoulder.
"And were all evil, there would be no need for shamans. Bah! You
children-afraid-of-the-dark!"
And when Klok-No-Ton arrived on the afternoon tide, Sime's defiant
laugh was unabated; nor did he forbear to make a joke when the shaman
tripped on the sand in the landing. Klok-No-Ton looked at him sourly, and
without greeting stalked straight through their midst to the house of
Scundoo.
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Of the meeting with Scundoo none of the tribespeople might know, for
they clustered reverently in the distance and spoke in whispers while the
masters of mystery were together.
"Greeting, O Scundoo!" Klok-No-Ton rumbled, wavering perceptibly
from doubt of his reception.
He was a giant in stature, and towered massively above little Scundoo,
whose thin voice floated upward like the faint far rasping of a cricket.
"Greeting, Klok-No-Ton," he returned. "The day is fair with thy coming. "
"Yet it would seem . . ." Klok-No-Ton hesitated.
"Yea, yea," the little shaman put in impatiently, "that I have fallen on ill
days, else would I not stand in gratitude to you in that you do my work."
"It grieves me, friend Scundoo . . ."
"Nay, I am made glad, Klok-No-Ton."
"But will I give thee half of that which be given me."
"Not so, good Klok-No-Ton," murmured Scundoo, with a deprecatory
wave of the hand. "It is I who am thy slave, and my days shall be filled
with desire to befriend thee."
"As I—"
"As thou now befriendest me."
"That being so, it is then a bad business, these blankets of the woman
Hooniah?"
The big shaman blundered tentatively in his quest, and Scundoo smiled a
wan, gray smile, for he was used to reading men, and all men seemed very
small to him.
"Ever hast thou dealt in strong medicine," he said. "Doubtless the evildoer
will be briefly known to thee."
"Ay, briefly known when I set eyes upon him." Again Klok-No- Ton
hesitated. "Have there been gossips from other places?" he asked.
Scundoo shook his head. "Behold! Is this not a most excellent mucluc?"
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He held up the foot-covering of sealskin and walrus hide, and his visitor
examined it with secret interest.
"It did come to me by a close-driven bargain."
Klok-No-Ton nodded atten
tively.
"I got it from the man La-lah. He is a remarkable man, and often have I
thought . . ."
"So?" Klok-No-Ton ventured impatiently.
"Often have I thought," Scundoo concluded, his voice falling as he came
to a full pause. "It is a fair day, and thy medicine be strong, Klok-No-
Ton."
Klok-No-Ton's face brightened. "Thou art a great man, Scundoo, a shaman
of shamans. I go now. I shall remember thee always. And the man La-lah,
as you say, is a remarkable man."
Scundoo smiled yet more wan and gray, closed the door on the heels of his
departing visitor, and barred and double-barred it.
Sime was mending his canoe when Klok-No-Ton came down the beach,
and he broke off from his work only long enough to ostentatiously load his
rifle and place it near him.
The shaman noted the action and called out: "Let all the people come
together on this spot! It is the word of Klok-No-Ton, devil- seeker and
driver of devils!"
He had been minded to assemble them at Hooniah's house, but it was
necessary that all should be present, and he was doubtful of Sime's
obedience and did not wish trouble. Sime was a good man to let alone, his
judgment ran, and withal, a bad one for the health of any shaman.
"Let the woman Hooniah be brought," Klok-No-Ton commanded, glaring
ferociously about the circle and sending chills up and down the spines of
those he looked upon.
Hooniah waddled forward, head bent and gaze averted.
"Where be thy blankets?"
"I but stretched them up in the sun, and behold, they were not!" she
whined.
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"So?"
"It was because of Di Ya."
"So?"
"Him have I beaten sore, and he shall yet be beaten, for that he brought
trouble upon us who be poor people."
"The blankets!" Klok-No-Ton bellowed hoarsely, foreseeing her desire to
lower the price to be paid. "The blankets, woman! Thy wealth is known."
"I but stretched them up in the sun," she sniffled, "and we be poor people
and have nothing."
He stiffened suddenly, with a hideous distortion of the face, and Hooniah
shrank back. But so swiftly did he spring forward, with inturned eyeballs
and loosened jaw, that she stumbled and fell down grovelling at his feet.
He waved his arms about, wildly flagellating the air, his body writhing and
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