carried away in token. Very good. But thou, who have forsworn the
Raven, must do more. Thou must bring me, not scalps, but heads’ two
heads, and then will I give thee, not bark, but a brave- beaded belt, and
sheath, and long Russian knife. Then will I look kindly upon thee once
again, and all will be well.”
“So,” the man pondered. “So.” Then he turned and passed out through the
light.
“Nay, O Keesh!” she called after him. “Not two heads, but three at least!”
But Keesh remained true to his conversion, lived uprightly, and made his
tribespeople obey the gospel as propounded by the Rev. Jackson Brown.
Through all the time of the Fishing he gave no heed to the Tana-naw, nor
took notice of the sly things which were said, nor of the laughter of the
women of the many tribes. After the Fishing, Gnob and his people, with
great store of salmon, sun-dried and smoke-cured, departed for the
Hunting on the head reaches of the Tana-naw. Keesh watched them go,
but did not fail in his attendance at Mission service, where he prayed
regularly and led the singing with his deep bass voice.
The Rev. Jackson Brown delighted in that deep bass voice, and because of
his sterling qualities deemed him the most promising convert.
Macklewrath doubted this. He did not believe in the efficacy of the
conversion of the heathen, and he was not slow in speaking his mind. But
Mr. Brown was a large man, in his way, and he argued it out with such
convincingness, all of one long fall night, that the trader, driven from
position after position, finally announced in desperation, “Knock out my
brains with apples, Brown, if I don’t become a convert myself, if Keesh
holds fast, true blue, for two years!” Mr. Brown never lost an opportunity,
so he clinched the matter on the spot with a virile hand-grip, and
thenceforth the conduct of Keesh was to determine the ultimate abidingplace
of Macklewrath’s soul.
But there came news one day, after the winter’s rime had settled down
over the land sufficiently for travel. A Tana-naw man arrived at the St.
George Mission in quest of ammunition and bringing information that Su-
Su had set eyes on Nee-Koo, a nervy young hunter who had bid brilliantly
for her by old Gnob’s fire. It was at about this time that the Rev. Jackson
Brown came upon Keesh by the wood-trail which leads down to the river.
Keesh had his best dogs in the harness, and shoved under the sled-lashings
was his largest and finest pair of snow-shoes.
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80
“Where goest thou, O Keesh? Hunting?” Mr. Brown asked, falling into the
Indian manner.
Keesh looked him steadily in the eyes for a full minute, then started up his
dogs. Then again, turning his deliberate gaze upon the missionary, he
answered, “No; I go to hell.”
In an open space, striving to burrow into the snow as though for shelter
from the appalling desolateness, huddled three dreary lodges. Ringed all
about, a dozen paces away, was the sombre forest. Overhead there was no
keen, blue sky of naked space, but a vague, misty curtain, pregnant with
snow, which had drawn between. There was no wind, no sound, nothing
but the snow and silence. Nor was there even the general stir of life about
the camp; for the hunting party had run upon the flank of the caribou herd
and the kill had been large. Thus, after the period of fasting had come the
plenitude of feasting, and thus, in broad daylight, they slept heavily under
their roofs of moosehide.
By a fire, before one of the lodges, five pairs of snow-shoes stood on end
in their element, and by the fire sat Su-Su. The hood of her squirrel-skin
parka was about her hair, and well drawn up around her throat; but her
hands were unmittened and nimbly at work with needle and sinew,
completing the last fantastic design on a belt of leather faced with bright
scarlet cloth. A dog, somewhere at the rear of one of the lodges, raised a
short, sharp bark, then ceased as abruptly as it had begun. Once, her father,
in the lodge at her back, gurgled and grunted in his sleep. “Bad dreams,”
she smiled to herself. “He grows old, and that last joint was too much.”
She placed the last bead, knotted the sinew, and replenished the fire. Then,
after gazing long into the flames, she lifted her head to the harsh crunchcrunch
of a moccasined foot against the flinty snow granules. Keesh was
at her side, bending slightly forward to a load which he bore upon his
back. This was wrapped loosely in a soft- tanned moosehide, and he
dropped it carelessly into the snow and sat down. They looked at each
other long and without speech.
“It is a far fetch, O Keesh,” she said at last, “a far fetch from St. George
Mission by the Yukon.”
“Ay,” he made answer, absently, his eyes fixed keenly upon the belt and
taking note of its girth. “But where is the knife?” he demanded.
“Here.” She drew it from inside her parka and flashed its naked length in
the firelight. “It is a good knife.”
“Give it me ! ” he commanded.
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81
“Nay, O Keesh,” she laughed. “It may be that thou west not born to wear
it. ”
“Give it me!” he reiterated, without change of tone. “I was so born.”
But her eyes, glancing coquettishly past him to the moosehide, saw the
snow about it slowly reddening. “It is blood, Keesh?” she asked.
“Ay, it is blood. But give me the belt and the long Russian knife.”
She felt suddenly afraid, but thrilled when he took the belt roughly from
her, thrilled to the roughness. She looked at him softly, and was aware of a
pain at the breast and of small hands clutching her throat.
“It was made for a smaller man,” he remarked grimly, drawing in his
abdomen and clasping the buckle at the first hole.
Su-Su smiled, and her eyes were yet softer. Again she felt the soft hands at
her throat. He was good to look upon, and the belt was indeed small, made
for a smaller man: but what did it matter? She could make many belts.
“But the blood?” she asked, urged on by a hope new-born
“The blood, Keesh? Is it . . . are they . . . heads?”
“Ay.”
“They must be very fresh, else would the blood be frozen.”
“Ay, it is not cold, and they be fresh, quite fresh.”
“Oh. Keesh!” Her face was warm and bright “And for me?”
“Ay; for thee.”
He took hold of a corner of the hide, flirted it open, and rolled the heads
out before her.
“Three,” he whispered savagely; “nay, four at least.”
But she sat transfixed. There they lay—the soft-featured Nee- Koo; the
gnarled old face of Gnob; Makamuk, grinning at her with his lifted upper
lip; and lastly, Nossabok, his eyelid, up to its old trick, drooped on his
girlish cheek in a suggestive wink. There they lay, the firelight flashing
upon and playing over them, and from each of them a widening circle
dyed the snow to scarlet.
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82
Thawed by the fire, the white crust gave way beneath the head of Gnob,
which rolled over like a thing alive, spun around, and came to rest at her
feet. But she did not move. Keesh, too, sat motionless, his eyes
unblinking, centred steadfastly upon her.
Once, in the forest, an overburdened pine dropped its load of snow, and
the echoes reverberated hollowly down the gorge; but neither stirred.
The short day had been waning fast, and darkness was wrapping round the
camp when White Fang trotted up toward the fire. He paused to
reconnoitre, but not being driven back, came closer. His nose shot swiftly
to the side, nostrils a-tremble and bristles rising along the spine; and
straight and true, he followed the sudden scent to his master’s head. He
sniffed it gingerly at first and licked the forehead with his red lolling
tongue. Then he sat abruptly down, pointed his nose up at the first faint
star, and raised the long wolf- howl.
This brought Su-Su to herself. She glanced across at Keesh, who had
unsheathed the Russian knife and was watching her intently. His face was
firm and set, and in it she read the law. Slipping back the hood of her
parka, she bared her neck and rose to her feet. There she paused and took a
long look about her, at the rimming forest, at the faint stars in the sky, at
the camp, at the snow-shoes in the snow—a last long comprehensive look
at life. A light breeze stirred her hair from the side, and for the space of
one deep breath she turned her head and followed it around until she met it