down the line found no welcome in the eyes of the fisherfolk. The men
and women whispered together. The children stole timidly back among
their elders, and bristling dogs fawned up to him and sniffed suspiciously.
“I bore thee, Nam-Bok, and I gave thee suck when thou west little,” Bask-
Wah-Wan whimpered, drawing closer; “and shadow though thou be, or no
shadow, I will give thee to eat now.”
Nam-Bok made to come to her, but a growl of fear and menace warned
him back. He said something in a strange tongue which sounded like
“Goddam,” and added, “No shadow am I, but a man.”
“Who may know concerning the things of mystery?” Opee-Kwan
demanded, half of himself and half of his tribespeople. “We are, and in a
breath we are not. If the man may become shadow, may not the shadow
become man? Nam-Bok was, but is not. This we know, but we do not
know if this be Nam-Bok or the shadow of Nam-Bok.”
Nam-Bok cleared his throat and made answer. “In the old time long ago,
thy father’s father, Opee-Kwan, went away and came back on the heels of
the years. Nor was a place by the fire denied him. It is said . . .” He paused
significantly, and they hung on his utterance. “It is said,” he repeated,
driving his point home with deliberation, “that Sipsip, his klooch, bore
him two sons after he came back.”
“But he had no doings with the off-shore wind,” Opee-Kwan retorted. “He
went away into the heart of the land, and it is in the nature of things that a
man may go on and on into the land.”
“And likewise the sea. But that is neither here nor there. It is said . that thy
father’s father told strange tales of the things he saw.”
“Ay, strange tales he told.”
“I, too, have strange tales to tell,” Nam-Bok stated insidiously. And, as
they wavered, “And presents likewise.”
He pulled from the bidarka a shawl, marvellous of texture and color, and
flung it about his mother’s shoulders. The women voiced a collective sigh
CHILDREN OF THE FROST
27
of admiration, and old Bask-Wah-Wan ruffled the gay material and patted
it and crooned in childish joy.
“He has tales to tell,” Koogah muttered. “And presents,” a woman
seconded.
And Opee-Kwan knew that his people were eager, and further, he was
aware himself of an itching curiosity concerning those untold tales. “The
fishing has been good,” he said judiciously, ”and we have oil in plenty. So
come, Nam-Bok, let us feast.”
Two of the men hoisted the bidarka on their shoulders and carried it up to
the fire. Nam-Bok walked by the side of Opee-Kwan, and the villagers
followed after, save those of the women who lingered a moment to lay
caressing fingers on the shawl.
There was little talk while the feast went on, though many and curious
were the glances stolen at the son of Bask-Wah-Wan. This embarrassed
him—not because he was modest of spirit, however, but for the fact that
the stench of the seal-oil had robbed him of his appetite, and that he
keenly desired to conceal his feelings on the subject.
“Eat; thou art hungry,” Opee-Kwan commanded, and Nam-Bok shut both
his eyes and shoved his fist into the big pot of putrid fish.
“La la, be not ashamed. The seal were many this year, and strong men are
ever hungry.” And Bask-Wah-Wan sopped a particularly offensive chunk
of salmon into the oil and passed it fondly and dripping to her son.
In despair, when premonitory symptoms warned him that his stomach was
not so strong as of old, he filled his pipe and struck up a smoke. The
people fed on noisily and watched. Few of them could boast of intimate
acquaintance with the precious weed, though now and again small
quantities and abominable qualities were obtained in trade from the
Eskimos to the northward. Koogah, sitting next to him indicated that he
was not averse to taking a draw, and between two mouthfuls, with the oil
thick on his lips, sucked away at the amber stem. And thereupon Nam-Bok
held his stomach with a shaky hand and declined the proffered return.
Koogah could keep the pipe, he said, for he had intended so to honor him
from the first. And the people licked their fingers and approved of his
liberality.
Opee-Kwan rose to his feet. “And now, O Nam-Bok, the feast is ended,
and we would listen concerning the strange things you have seen. ”
CHILDREN OF THE FROST
28
The fisherfolk applauded with their hands, and gathering about them their
work, prepared to listen. The men were busy fashioning spears and
carving on ivory, while the women scraped the fat from the hides of the
hair seal and made them pliable or sewed muclucs with threads of sinew.
Nam-Bok’s eyes roved over the scene, but there was not the charm about it
that his recollection had warranted him to expect. During the years of his
wandering he had looked forward to just this scene, and now that it had
come he was disappointed. It was a bare and meagre life, he deemed, and
not to be compared to the one to which he had become used. Still, he
would open their eyes a bit, and his own eyes sparkled at the thought.
“Brother,” he began, with the smug complacency of a man about to relate
the big things he has done, `’it was late summer of many summers back,
with much such weather as this promises to be, when I went away. You all
remember the day, when the gulls flew low, and the wind blew strong
from the land, and I could not hold my bidarka against it. I tied the
covering of the bidarka about me so that no water could get in, and all of
the night I fought with the storm. And in the morning there was no land,—
only the sea,—and the off- shore wind held me close in its arms and bore
me along. Three such nights whitened into dawn and showed me no land,
and the off-shore wind would not let me go.
“And when the fourth day came, I was as a madman. I could not dip my
paddle for want of food; and my head went round and round, what of the
thirst that was upon me. But the sea was no longer angry, and the soft
south wind was blowing, and as I looked about me I saw a sight that made
me think I was indeed mad.”
Nam-Bok paused to pick away a sliver of salmon lodged between his
teeth, and the men and women, with idle hands and heads craned forward,
waited.
“It was a canoe, a big canoe. If all the canoes I have ever seen were made
into one canoe, it would not be so large.”
There were exclamations of doubt, and Koogah, whose years were many,
shook his head.
“If each bidarka were as a grain of sand,” Nam-Bok defiantly continued,
“and if there were as many bidarkas as there be grains of sand in this
beach, still would they not make so big a canoe as this I saw on the
morning of the fourth day. It was a very big canoe, and it was called a
schooner. I saw this thing of wonder, this great schooner, coming after me,
and on it I saw men—”
CHILDREN OF THE FROST
29
“Hold, O Nam-Bok!” Opee-Kwan broke in. “What manner of men were
they?—big men?”
“Nay, mere men like you and me.”
“Did the big canoe come fast?”
“Ay. ”
“The sides were tall, the men short.” Opee-Kwan stated the premises with
conviction. “And did these men dip with long paddles?”
Nam-Bok grinned. “There were no paddles,” he said.
Mouths remained open, and a long silence dropped down. OpeeKwan
borrowed Koogah’s pipe for a couple of contemplative sucks. One of the
younger women giggled nervously and drew upon herself angry eyes.
“There were no paddles?” Opee-Kwan asked softly, returning the pipe.
“The south wind was behind,” Nam-Bok explained.
“But the wind-drift is slow.”
“The schooner had wings—thus.” He sketched a diagram of masts and
sails in the sand, and the men crowded around and studied it. The wind
was blowing briskly, and for more graphic elucidation he seized the
corners of his mother’s shawl and spread them out till it bellied like a sail.
Bask-Wah-Wan scolded and struggled, but was blown down the beach for
a score of feet and left breathless and stranded in a heap of driftwood. The
men uttered sage grunts of comprehension, but Koogah suddenly tossed
back his hoary head.
“Ho! Ho!” he laughed. “A foolish thing, this big canoe! A most foolish
thing! The plaything of the wind! Wheresoever the wind goes, it goes too.
No man who journeys therein may name the landing beach, for always he
goes with the wind, and the wind goes everywhere, but no man knows