never slept, but went on unceasing, in good times and bad, in flood and famine, through
trouble and terror and death, and which would go on unceasing, it seemed to him, to the
end of time. A man rapped sharply on a table, and the conversation droned away into
silence. Imber looked at the man. He seemed one in authority, yet Imber divined the
square-browed man who sat by a desk farther back to be the one chief over them all and
over the man who had rapped. Another man by the same table uprose and began to read
aloud from many fine sheets of paper. At the top of each sheet he cleared his throat, at the
bottom moistened his fingers. Imber did not understand his speech, but the others did,
and he knew that it made them angry. Sometimes it made them very angry, and once a
man cursed him, in single syllables, stinging and tense, till a man at the table rapped him
to silence.
For an interminable period the man read. His monotonous, sing-song utterance lured
Imber to dreaming, and he was dreaming deeply when the man ceased. A voice spoke to
him in his own Whitefish tongue, and he roused up, without surprise, to look upon the
face of his sister's son, a young man who had wandered away years agone to make his
dwelling with the whites.
"Thou dost not remember me," he said by way of greeting.
"Nay," Imber answered. "Thou art Howkan who went away. Thy mother be dead."
"She was an old woman," said Howkan.
But Imber did not hear, and Howkan, with hand upon his shoulder, roused him again.
"I shall speak to thee what the man has spoken, which is the tale of the troubles thou hast
done and which thou hast told, O fool, to the Captain Alexander. And thou shalt
understand and say if it be true talk or talk not true. It is so commanded."
Howkan had fallen among the mission folk and been taught by them to read and write. In
his hands he held the many fine sheets from which the man had read aloud, and which
had been taken down by a clerk when Imber first made confession, through the mouth of
Jimmy, to Captain Alexander. Howkan began to read. Imber listened for a space, when a
wonderment rose up in his face and he broke in abruptly.
"That be my talk, Howkan. Yet from thy lips it comes when thy ears have not heard."
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Howkan smirked with self-appreciation. His hair was parted in the middle. "Nay, from
the paper it comes, O Imber. Never have my ears heard. From the paper it comes, through
my eyes, into my head, and out of my mouth to thee. Thus it comes."
"Thus it comes? It be there in the paper?" Imber's voice sank in whisperful awe as he
crackled the sheets 'twixt thumb and finger and stared at the charactery scrawled thereon.
"It be a great medicine, Howkan, and thou art a worker of wonders."
"It be nothing, it be nothing," the young man responded carelessly and pridefully. He
read at hazard from the document: "In that year, before the break of the ice, came an old
man, and a boy who was lame of one foot. These also did I kill, and the old man made
much noise -- "
"It be true," Imber interrupted breathlessly. "He made much noise and would not die for a
long time. But how dost thou know, Howkan? The chief man of the white men told thee,
mayhap? No one beheld me, and him alone have I told." Howkan shook his head with
impatience. "Have I not told thee it be there in the paper, O fool?"
Imber stared hard at the ink-scrawled surface. "As the hunter looks upon the snow and
says, Here but yesterday there passed a rabbit; and here by the willow scrub it stood and
listened, and heard, and was afraid; and here it turned upon its trail; and here it went with
great swiftness, leaping wide; and here, with greater swiftness and wider leapings, came a
lynx; and here, where the claws cut deep into the snow, the lynx made a very great leap;
and here it struck, with the rabbit under and rolling belly up; and here leads off the trail of
the lynx alone, and there is no more rabbit, -- as the hunter looks upon the markings of
the snow and says thus and so and here, dost thou, too, look upon the paper and say thus
and so and here be the things old Imber hath done?"
"Even so," said Howkan. "And now do thou listen, and keep thy woman's tongue between
thy teeth till thou art called upon for speech."
Thereafter, and for a long time, Howkan read to him the confession, and Imber remained
musing and silent. At the end, he said:
"It be my talk, and true talk, but I am grown old, Howkan, and forgotten things come
back to me which were well for the head man there to know. First, there was the man
who came over the Ice Mountains, with cunning traps made of iron, who sought the
beaver of the Whitefish. Him I slew. And there were three men seeking gold on the
Whitefish long ago. Them also I slew, and left them to the wolverines. And at the Five
Fingers there was a man with a raft and much meat."
At the moments when Imber paused to remember, Howkan translated and a clerk reduced
to writing. The courtroom listened stolidly to each unadorned little tragedy, till Imber told
of a red-haired man whose eyes were crossed and whom he had killed with a remarkably
long shot.
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"Hell," said a man in the forefront of the onlookers. He said it soulfully and sorrowfully.
He was red-haired. "Hell," he repeated. "That was my brother Bill." And at regular
intervals throughout the session, his solemn "Hell" was heard in the courtroom; nor did
his comrades check him, nor did the man at the table rap him to order.
Imber's head drooped once more, and his eyes went dull, as though a film rose up and
covered them from the world. And he dreamed as only age can dream upon the colossal
futility of youth.
Later, Howkan roused him again, saying: "Stand up, O Imber. It be commanded that thou
tellest why you did these troubles, and slew these people, and at the end journeyed here
seeking the Law."
Imber rose feebly to his feet and swayed back and forth. He began to speak in a low and
faintly rumbling voice, but Howkan interrupted him.
"This old man, he is damn crazy," he said in English to the square-browed man. "His talk
is foolish and like that of a child."
"We will hear his talk which is like that of a child," said the square-browed man. "And
we will hear it, word for word, as he speaks it. Do you understand?"
Howkan understood, and Imber's eyes flashed, for he had witnessed the play between his
sister's son and the man in authority. And then began the story, the epic of a bronze
patriot which might well itself be wrought into bronze for the generations unborn. The
crowd fell strangely silent, and the square-browed judge leaned head on hand and
pondered his soul and the soul of his race. Only was heard the deep tones of Imber,
rhythmically alternating with the shrill voice of the interpreter, and now and again, like
the bell of the Lord, the wondering and meditative "Hell" of the red-haired man.
"I am Imber of the Whitefish people." So ran the interpretation of Howkan, whose
inherent barbarism gripped hold of him, and who lost his mission culture and veneered
c
ivilization as he caught the savage ring and rhythm of old Imber's tale. "My father was
Otsbaok, a strong man. The land was warm with sunshine and gladness when I was a
boy. The people did not hunger after strange things, nor hearken to new voices, and the
ways of their fathers were their ways. The women found favor in the eyes of the young
men, and the young men looked upon them with content. Babes hung at the breasts of the
women, and they were heavy-hipped with increase of the tribe. Men were men in those
days. In peace and plenty, and in war and famine, they were men.
"At that time there was more fish in the water than now, and more meat in the forest. Our
dogs were wolves, warm with thick hides and hard to the frost and storm. And as with
our dogs so with us, for we were likewise hard to the frost and storm. And when the
Pellys came into our land we slew them and were slain. For we were men, we Whitefish,
and our fathers and our fathers' fathers had fought against the Pellys and determined the
bounds of the land.
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"As I say, with our dogs, so with us. And one day came the first white man. He dragged
himself, so, on hand and knee, in the snow. And his skin was stretched tight, and his
bones were sharp beneath. Never was such a man, we thought, and we wondered of what
strange tribe he was, and of its land. And he was weak, most weak, like a little child, so
that we gave him a place by the fire, and warm furs to lie upon, and we gave him food as
little children are given food.
"And with him was a dog, large as three of our dogs, and very weak. The hair of this dog
was short, and not warm, and the tail was frozen so that the end fell off. And this strange
dog we fed, and bedded by the fire, and fought from it our dogs, which else would have
killed him. And what of the moose meat and the sun-dried salmon, the man and dog took
strength to themselves; and what of the strength they became big and unafraid. And the
man spoke loud words and laughed at the old men and young men, and looked boldly
upon the maidens. And the dog fought with our dogs, and for all of his short hair and
softness slew three of them in one day.
"When we asked the man concerning his people, he said, `I have many brothers,' and
laughed in a way that was not good. And when he was in his full strength he went away,
and with him went Noda, daughter to the chief. First, after that, was one of our bitches
brought to pup. And never was there such a breed of dogs, -- big-headed, thick-jawed,
and short-haired, and helpless. Well do I remember my father, Otsbaok, a strong man.
His face was black with anger at such helplessness, and he took a stone, so, and so, and
there was no more helplessness. And two summers after that came Noda back to us with
a man-child in the hollow of her arm.
"And that was the beginning. Came a second white man, with short-haired dogs, which
he left behind him when he went. And with him went six of our strongest dogs, for
which, in trade, he had given Koo-So-Tee, my mother's brother, a wonderful pistol that
fired with great swiftness six times. And Koo-So-Tee was very big, what of the pistol,
and laughed at our bows and arrows. `Woman's things,' he called them, and went forth
against the bald-face grizzly, with the pistol in his hand. Now it be known that it is not
good to hunt the bald-face with a pistol, but how were we to know? and how was Koo-
So-Tee to know? So he went against the bald-face, very brave, and fired the pistol with
great swiftness six times; and the bald-face but grunted and broke in his breast like it
were an egg, and like honey from a bee's nest dripped the brains of Koo-So-Tee upon the
ground. He was a good hunter, and there was no one to bring meat to his squaw and
children. And we were bitter, and we said, `That which for the white men is well, is for us
not well.' And this be true. There be many white men and fat, but their ways have made
us few and lean.
"Came the third white man, with great wealth of all manner of wonderful foods and
things. And twenty of our strongest dogs he took from us in trade. Also, what of presents
and great promises, ten of our young hunters did he take with him on a journey which
fared no man knew where. It is said they died in the snow of the Ice Mountains where
man has never been, or in the Hills of Silence which are beyond the edge of the earth. Be
that as it may, dogs and young hunters were seen never again by the Whitefish people.
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"And more white men came with the years, and ever, with pay and presents, they led the
young men away with them. And sometimes the young men came back with strange tales
of dangers and toils in the lands beyond the Pellys, and sometimes they did not come
back. And we said: `If they be unafraid of life, these white men, it is because they have
many lives; but we be few by the Whitefish, and the young men shall go away no more.'
But the young men did go away; and the young women went also; and we were very
wroth.
"It be true, we ate flour, and salt pork, and drank tea which was a great delight; only,
when we could not get tea, it was very bad and we became short of speech and quick of
anger. So we grew to hunger for the things the white men brought in trade. Trade! trade!
all the time was it trade! One winter we sold our meat for clocks that would not go, and
watches with broken guts, and files worn smooth, and pistols without cartridges and
worthless. And then came famine, and we were without meat, and two score died ere the
break of spring.
"`Now are we grown weak,' we said; `and the Pellys will fall upon us, and our bounds be
overthrown.' But as it fared with us, so had it fared with the Pellys, and they were too
weak to come against us.
"My father, Otsbaok, a strong man, was now old and very wise. And he spoke to the
chief, saying: `Behold, our dogs be worthless. No longer are they thick-furred and strong,
and they die in the frost and harness. Let us go into the village and kill them, saving only
the wolf ones, and these let us tie out in the night that they may mate with the wild
wolves of the forest. Thus shall we have dogs warm and strong again.'
"And his word was harkened to, and we Whitefish became known for our dogs, which
were the best in the land. But known we were not for ourselves. The best of our young
men and women had gone away with the white men to wander on trail and river to far
places. And the young women came back old and broken, as Noda had come, or they
came not at all. And the young men came back to sit by our fires for a time, full of ill
speech and rough ways, drinking evil drinks and gambling through long nights and days,
with a great unrest always in their hearts, till the call of the white men came to them and
they went away again to the unknown places. And they were without honor and respect,
jeering the old-time customs and laughing in the faces of chief and shamans.
"As I say, we were become a weak breed, we Whitefish. We sold our warm skins and
furs for tobacco and whiskey and thin cotton things that left us shivering in the cold. And
the coughing s
ickness came upon us, and men and women coughed and sweated through
the long nights, and the hunters on trail spat blood upon the snow. And now one, and now
another, bled swiftly from the mouth and died. And the women bore few children, and
those they bore were weak and given to sickness. And other sicknesses came to us from
the white men, the like of which we had never known and could not understand.
Smallpox, likewise measles, have I heard these sicknesses named, and we died of them as
die the salmon in the still eddies when in the fall their eggs are spawned and there is no
longer need for them to live.
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"And yet, and here be the strangeness of it, the white men come as the breath of death; all
their ways lead to death, their nostrils are filled with it; and yet they do not die. Theirs the
whiskey, and tobacco, and short-haired dogs; theirs the many sicknesses, the smallpox
and measles, the coughing and mouth-bleeding; theirs the white skin, and softness to the
frost and storm; and theirs the pistols that shoot six times very swift and are worthless.
And yet they grow fat on their many ills, and prosper, and lay a heavy hand over all the
world and tread mightily upon its peoples. And their women, too, are soft as little babes,
most breakable and never broken, the mothers of men. And out of all this softness, and
sickness, and weakness, come strength, and power, and authority. They be gods, or
devils, as the case may be. I do not know. What do I know, I, old Imber of the Whitefish?
Only do I know that they are past understanding, these white men, far-wanderers and
fighters over the earth that they be.
"As I say, the meat in the forest became less and less. It be true, the white man's gun is
most excellent and kills a long way off; but of what worth the gun, when there is no meat
to kill? When I was a boy on the Whitefish there was moose on every hill, and each year
came the caribou uncountable. But now the hunter may take the trail ten days and not one
moose gladden his eyes, while the caribou uncountable come no more at all. Small worth
the gun, I say, killing a long way off, when there be nothing to kill.
"And I, Imber, pondered upon these things, watching the while the Whitefish, and the
Pellys, and all the tribes of the land, perishing as perished the meat of the forest. Long I
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