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
CHILDREN OF THE FROST
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
marvellous 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.
CHILDREN OF THE FROST
39
“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
CHILDREN OF THE FROST
40
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.
CHILDREN OF THE FROST
41
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,