stand forth and take his merited reward. I have spoken.”
“It shall be death!” Bawn vociferated, “for that it hath brought worry upon
us, and shame.”
“So be it,” Scundoo replied, and shut his door.
“Now shall all be made clear and plain, and content rest upon us once
again,” La-lah declaimed oracularly.
“Because of Scundoo, the little man,” Sime sneered.
“Because of the medicine of Scundoo, the little man,” La-lah corrected.
“Children of foolishness, these Thlinket people!” Sime smote his thigh a
resounding blow. “It passeth understanding that grown women and strong
men should get down in the dirt to dream-things and wonder tales.”
“I am a travelled man,” La-lah answered. “I have journeyed on the deep
seas and seen signs and wonders, and I know that these things be so. I am
La-lah—”
“The Cheater—”
“So called, but the Far-Journeyer right-named.”
“I am not so great a traveller—” Sime began.
“Then hold thy tongue,” Bawn cut in, and they separated in anger.
When the last silver moonlight had vanished beyond the world, Scundoo
came among the people huddled about the house of Hooniah. He walked
with a quick, alert step, and those who saw him in the light of Hooniah’s
CHILDREN OF THE FROST
46
slush-lamp noticed that he came empty- handed, without rattles, masks, or
shaman’s paraphernalia, save for a great sleepy raven carried under one
arm.
“Is there wood gathered for a fire, so that all may see when the work be
done?” he demanded.
“Yea,” Bawn answered. “There be wood in plenty.”
“Then let all listen, for my words be few. With me have I brought Jelchs,
the Raven, diviner of mystery and seer of things. Him, in his blackness,
shall I place under the big black pot of Hooniah, in the blackest corner of
her house. The slush-lamp shall cease to burn, and all remain in outer
darkness. It is very simple. One by one shall ye go into the house, lay hand
upon the pot for the space of one long intake of the breath, and withdraw
again. Doubtless Jelchs will make outcry when the hand of the evil-doer is
nigh him. Or who knows but otherwise he may manifest his wisdom. Are
ye ready?”
“We be ready,” came the multi-voiced response.
“Then will I call the name aloud, each in his turn and hers, till all are
called.”
Thereat La-lah was first chosen, and he passed in at once. Every ear
strained, and through the silence they could hear his footsteps creaking
across the rickety floor. But that was all. Jelchs made no outcry, gave no
sign. Bawn was next chosen, for it well might be that a man should steal
his own blankets with intent to cast shame upon his neighbors. Hooniah
followed, and other women and children, but without result.
“Sime!” Scundoo called out.
“Sime!” he repeated.
But Sime did not stir.
“Art thou afraid of the dark?” La-lah, his own integrity being proved,
demanded fiercely.
Sime chuckled. “I laugh at it all, for it is a great foolishness. Yet will I go
in, not in belief in wonders, but in token that I am unafraid.”
And he passed in boldly, and came out still mocking.
CHILDREN OF THE FROST
47
“Some day shalt thou die with great suddenness,” La-lah whispered,
righteously indignant.
“I doubt not,” the scoffer answered airily. “Few men of us die in our beds,
what of the shamans and the deep sea.”
When half the villagers had safely undergone the ordeal, the excitement,
because of its repression, was painfully intense. When two-thirds had gone
through, a young woman, close on her first child- bed, broke down and in
nervous shrieks and laughter gave form to her terror.
Finally the turn came for the last of all to go in, and nothing had happened.
And Di Ya was the last of all. It must surely be he. Hooniah let out a
lament to the stars, while the rest drew back from the luckless lad. He was
half-dead from fright, and his legs gave under him so that he staggered on
the threshold and nearly fell. Scundoo shoved him in- side and closed the
door. A long time went by, during which could be heard only the boy’s
weeping. Then, very slowly, came the creak of his steps to the far corner, a
pause, and the creaking of his return. The door opened and he came forth.
Nothing had happened, and he was the last.
“Let the fire be lighted,” Scundoo commanded.
The bright flames rushed upward, revealing faces yet marked with
vanishing fear, but also clouded with doubt.
“Surely the thing has failed,” Hooniah whispered hoarsely.
“Yea,” Bawn answered complacently. “Scundoo groweth old, and we
stand in need of a new shaman.”
“Where now is the wisdom of Jelchs?” Sime snickered in La-lah’s ear.
La-lah brushed his brow in a puzzled manner and said nothing.
Sime threw his chest out arrogantly and strutted up to the little shaman.
“Hoh! Hoh! As I said, nothing has come of it!”
“So it would seem, so it would seem,” Scundoo answered meekly. “And it
would seem strange to those unskilled in the affairs of mystery.”
“As thou?” Sime queried audaciously.
“Mayhap even as I.” Scundoo spoke quite softly, his eyelids droop- ing,
slowly drooping, down, down, till his eyes were all but hidden. HSo I am
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48
minded of another test. Let every man, woman, and child, now and at
once, hold their hands well up above their heads!”
So unexpected was the order, and so imperatively was it given, that it was
obeyed without question. Every hand was in the air.
“Let each look on the other’s hands, and let all look,” Scundoo com-
manded, “so that—”
But a noise of laughter, which was more of wrath, drowned his voice. All
eyes had come to rest upon Sime. Every hand but his was black with soot,
and his was guiltless of the smirch of Hooniah’s pot.
A stone hurtled through the air and struck him on the cheek.
“It is a lie!” he yelled. “A lie! I know naught of Hooniah’s blankets !”
A second stone gashed his brow, a third whistled past his head, the great
blood-cry went up, and everywhere were people groping on the ground for
missiles. He staggered and half sank down.
“It was a joke! Only a joke!” he shrieked. “I but took them for a joke!”
“Where hast thou hidden them?” Scundoo’s shrill, sharp voice cut through
the tumult like a knife. “In the large skin-bale in my house, the one slung
by the ridge-pole,” came the answer. “But it was a joke, I say, only—”
Scundoo nodded his head, and the air went thick with flying stones. Sime’s
wife was crying silently, her head upon her knees; but his little boy, with
shrieks and laughter, was flinging stones with the rest.
Hooniah came waddling back with the precious blankets. Scundoo stopped
her.
“We be poor people and have little,” she whimpered. “So be not hard upon
us, O Scundoo.”
The people ceased from the quivering stone-pile they had builded, and
looked on.
“Nay, it was never my way, good Hooniah,” Scundoo made answer,
reaching for the blankets. “In token that I am not hard, these only shall I
take.”
“Am I not wise, my children?” he demanded.
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49
“Thou art indeed wise, O Scundoo!” they cried in one voice.
And he went away into the darkness, the blankets around him, and Jelchs
nodding sleepily under his arm.
THE SUNLANDERS
(First published in Children of the Frost, Sept, 1902)
MANDELL is an obscure village on the rim of the polar sea. It is not
large, and the people are peaceable, more peaceable even than those of the
adjacent tribes. There are few men in Mandell, and many women;
wherefore a wholesome and necessary polygamy is in practice; the women
bear children with ardor, and the birth of a man- child is hailed with
acclamation. Then there is Aab-Waak, whose head rests always on one
shoulder, as though at some time the neck had become very tired and
refused forevermore its wonted duty.
The cause of all these things,—the peaceableness, and the polygamy, and
the tired neck of Aab-Waak,—goes back among the years to the time
when the schooner Search dropped anchor in Mandell Bay, and when
Tyee, chief man of the tribe, conceived a scheme of sudden wealth. To this
day the story of things that happened is remembered and spoken of with
bated breath by the people of Mandell, who are cousins to the Hungry
Folk who live in the west. Children draw closer when the tale is told, and
marvel sagely to themselves at the madness of those who might have been
their forebears had they not provoked the Sunlanders and come to bitter
ends.
It began to happen when six men came ashore from the Search, with heavy
outfits, as though they had come to stay, and quartered themselves in