"Everybody talking Chinook, not guessing that I could spit it better than most; and princ.i.p.ally two girls who"d run away from Haine"s Mission up the Lynn Ca.n.a.l. They were trim creatures, good to the eye, and I kind of thought of casting that way; but they were fresh as fresh-caught cod. Too much edge, you see. Being a new-comer, they started to twist me, not knowing I gathered in every word of Chinook they uttered.
"I never let on, but set to dancing with Tilly, and the more we danced the more our hearts warmed to each other. "Looking for a woman," one of the girls says, and the other tosses her head and answers, "Small chance he"ll get one when the women are looking for men." And the bucks and squaws standing around began to grin and giggle and repeat what had been said. "Quite a pretty boy," says the first one. I"ll not deny I was rather smooth-faced and youngish, but I"d been a man amongst men many"s the day, and it rankled me. "Dancing with Chief George"s girl," pipes the second. "First thing George"ll give him the flat of a paddle and send him about his business." Chief George had been looking pretty black up to now, but at this he laughed and slapped his knees. He was a husky beggar and would have used the paddle too.
""Who"s the girls?" I asked Tilly, as we went ripping down the centre in a reel. And as soon as she told me their names I remembered all about them from Happy Jack. Had their pedigree down fine--several things he"d told me that not even their own tribe knew. But I held my hush, and went on courting Tilly, they a-casting sharp remarks and everybody roaring.
"Bide a wee, Tommy," I says to myself; "bide a wee."
"And bide I did, till the dance was ripe to break up, and Chief George had brought a paddle all ready for me. Everybody was on the lookout for mischief when we stopped; but I marched, easy as you please, slap into the thick of them. The Mission girls cut me up something clever, and for all I was angry I had to set my teeth to keep from laughing. I turned upon them suddenly.
""Are you done?" I asked.
"You should have seen them when they heard me spitting Chinook. Then I broke loose. I told them all about themselves, and their people before them; their fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers--everybody, everything.
Each mean trick they"d played; every sc.r.a.pe they"d got into; every shame that"d fallen them. And I burned them without fear or favor. All hands crowded round. Never had they heard a white man sling their lingo as I did. Everybody was laughing save the Mission girls. Even Chief George forgot the paddle, or at least he was swallowing too much respect to dare to use it.
"But the girls. "Oh, don"t, Tommy," they cried, the tears running down their cheeks. "Please don"t. We"ll be good. Sure, Tommy, sure." But I knew them well, and I scorched them on every tender spot. Nor did I slack away till they came down on their knees, begging and pleading with me to keep quiet. Then I shot a glance at Chief George; but he did not know whether to have at me or not, and pa.s.sed it off by laughing hollowly.
"So be. When I pa.s.sed the parting with Tilly that night I gave her the word that I was going to be around for a week or so, and that I wanted to see more of her. Not thick-skinned, her kind, when it came to showing like and dislike, and she looked her pleasure for the honest girl she was. Ay, a striking la.s.s, and I didn"t wonder that Chief George was taken with her.
"Everything my way. Took the wind from his sails on the first leg. I was for getting her aboard and sailing down Wrangel way till it blew over, leaving him to whistle; but I wasn"t to get her that easy. Seems she was living with an uncle of hers--guardian, the way such things go--and seems he was nigh to shuffling off with consumption or some sort of lung trouble. He was good and bad by turns, and she wouldn"t leave him till it was over with. Went up to the tepee just before I left, to speculate on how long it"d be; but the old beggar had promised her to Chief George, and when he clapped eyes on me his anger brought on a hemorrhage.
""Come and take me, Tommy," she says when we bid good-by on the beach.
"Ay," I answers; "when you give the word." And I kissed her, white-man- fashion and lover-fashion, till she was all of a tremble like a quaking aspen, and I was so beside myself I"d half a mind to go up and give the uncle a lift over the divide.
"So I went down Wrangel way, past St. Mary"s and even to the Queen Charlottes, trading, running whiskey, turning the sloop to most anything.
Winter was on, stiff and crisp, and I was back to Juneau, when the word came. "Come," the beggar says who brought the news. "Killisnoo say, "Come now."" "What"s the row?" I asks. "Chief George," says he.
"_Potlach_. Killisnoo, mak.u.m _klooch_."
"Ay, it was bitter--the Taku howling down out of the north, the salt water freezing quick as it struck the deck, and the old sloop and I hammering into the teeth of it for a hundred miles to Dyea. Had a Dougla.s.s Islander for crew when I started, but midway up he was washed over from the bows. Jibed all over and crossed the course three times, but never a sign of him."
"Doubled up with the cold most likely," d.i.c.k suggested, putting a pause into the narrative while he hung one of Molly"s skirts up to dry, "and went down like a pot of lead."
"My idea. So I finished the course alone, half-dead when I made Dyea in the dark of the evening. The tide favored, and I ran the sloop plump to the bank, in the shelter of the river. Couldn"t go an inch further, for the fresh water was frozen solid. Halyards and blocks were that iced up I didn"t dare lower mainsail or jib. First I broached a pint of the cargo raw, and then, leaving all standing, ready for the start, and with a blanket around me, headed across the flat to the camp. No mistaking, it was a grand layout. The Chilcats had come in a body--dogs, babies, and canoes--to say nothing of the Dog-Ears, the Little Salmons, and the Missions. Full half a thousand of them to celebrate Tilly"s wedding, and never a white man in a score of miles.
"n.o.body took note of me, the blanket over my head and hiding my face, and I waded knee deep through the dogs and youngsters till I was well up to the front. The show was being pulled off in a big open place among the trees, with great fires burning and the snow moccasin-packed as hard as Portland cement. Next me was Tilly, beaded and scarlet-clothed galore, and against her Chief George and his head men. The shaman was being helped out by the big medicines from the other tribes, and it shivered my spine up and down, the deviltries they cut. I caught myself wondering if the folks in Liverpool could only see me now; and I thought of yellow- haired Gussie, whose brother I licked after my first voyage, just because he was not for having a sailorman courting his sister. And with Gussie in my eyes I looked at Tilly. A rum old world, thinks I, with man a-stepping in trails the mother little dreamed of when he lay at suck.
"So be. When the noise was loudest, walrus hides booming and priests a- singing, I says, "Are you ready?" Gawd! Not a start, not a shot of the eyes my way, not the twitch of a muscle. "I knew," she answers, slow and steady as a calm spring tide. "Where?" "The high bank at the edge of the ice," I whispers back. "Jump out when I give the word."
"Did I say there was no end of huskies? Well, there was no end. Here, there, everywhere, they were scattered about,--tame wolves and nothing less. When the strain runs thin they breed them in the bush with the wild, and they"re bitter fighters. Right at the toe of my moccasin lay a big brute, and by the heel another. I doubled the first one"s tail, quick, till it snapped in my grip. As his jaws clipped together where my hand should have been, I threw the second one by the scruff straight into his mouth. "Go!" I cried to Tilly.
"You know how they fight. In the wink of an eye there was a raging hundred of them, top and bottom, ripping and tearing each other, kids and squaws tumbling which way, and the camp gone wild. Tilly"d slipped away, so I followed. But when I looked over my shoulder at the skirt of the crowd, the devil laid me by the heart, and I dropped the blanket and went back.
"By then the dogs"d been knocked apart and the crowd was untangling itself. n.o.body was in proper place, so they didn"t note that Tilly"d gone. "h.e.l.lo," I says, gripping Chief George by the hand. "May your potlach-smoke rise often, and the Sticks bring many furs with the spring."
"Lord love me, d.i.c.k, but he was joyed to see me,--him with the upper hand and wedding Tilly. Chance to puff big over me. The tale that I was hot after her had spread through the camps, and my presence did him proud.
All hands knew me, without my blanket, and set to grinning and giggling.
It was rich, but I made it richer by playing unbeknowing.
""What"s the row?" I asks. "Who"s getting married now?"
""Chief George," the shaman says, ducking his reverence to him.
""Thought he had two _klooches_."
""Him tak.u.m more,--three," with another duck.
""Oh!" And I turned away as though it didn"t interest me.
"But this wouldn"t do, and everybody begins singing out, "Killisnoo!
Killisnoo!"
""Killisnoo what?" I asked.
""Killisnoo, _klooch_, Chief George," they blathered. "Killisnoo, _klooch_."
"I jumped and looked at Chief George. He nodded his head and threw out his chest.
"She"ll be no _klooch_ of yours," I says solemnly. "No _klooch_ of yours," I repeats, while his face went black and his hand began dropping to his hunting-knife.
""Look!" I cries, striking an att.i.tude. "Big Medicine. You watch my smoke."
"I pulled off my mittens, rolled back my sleeves, and made half-a-dozen pa.s.ses in the air.
""Killisnoo!" I shouts. "Killisnoo! Killisnoo!"
"I was making medicine, and they began to scare. Every eye was on me; no time to find out that Tilly wasn"t there. Then I called Killisnoo three times again, and waited; and three times more. All for mystery and to make them nervous. Chief George couldn"t guess what I was up to, and wanted to put a stop to the foolery; but the shamans said to wait, and that they"d see me and go me one better, or words to that effect.
Besides, he was a superst.i.tious cuss, and I fancy a bit afraid of the white man"s magic.
"Then I called Killisnoo, long and soft like the howl of a wolf, till the women were all a-tremble and the bucks looking serious.
""Look!" I sprang for"ard, pointing my finger into a bunch of squaws--easier to deceive women than men, you know. "Look!" And I raised it aloft as though following the flight of a bird. Up, up, straight overhead, making to follow it with my eyes till it disappeared in the sky.
""Killisnoo," I said, looking at Chief George and pointing upward again.
"Killisnoo."
"So help me, d.i.c.k, the gammon worked. Half of them, at least, saw Tilly disappear in the air. They"d drunk my whiskey at Juneau and seen stranger sights, I"ll warrant. Why should I not do this thing, I, who sold bad spirits corked in bottles? Some of the women shrieked.
Everybody fell to whispering in bunches. I folded my arms and held my head high, and they drew further away from me. The time was ripe to go.
"Grab him," Chief George cries. Three or four of them came at me, but I whirled, quick, made a couple of pa.s.ses like to send them after Tilly, and pointed up. Touch me? Not for the kingdoms of the earth. Chief George harangued them, but he couldn"t get them to lift a leg. Then he made to take me himself; but I repeated the mummery and his grit went out through his fingers.
""Let your shamans work wonders the like of which I have done this night," I says. "Let them call Killisnoo down out of the sky whither I have sent her." But the priests knew their limits. "May your _klooches_ bear you sons as the sp.a.w.n of the salmon," I says, turning to go; "and may your totem pole stand long in the land, and the smoke of your camp rise always."
"But if the beggars could have seen me hitting the high places for the sloop as soon as I was clear of them, they"d thought my own medicine had got after me. Tilly"d kept warm by chopping the ice away, and was all ready to cast off. Gawd! how we ran before it, the Taku howling after us and the freezing seas sweeping over at every clip. With everything battened down, me a-steering and Tilly chopping ice, we held on half the night, till I plumped the sloop ash.o.r.e on Porcupine Island, and we shivered it out on the beach; blankets wet, and Tilly drying the matches on her breast.
"So I think I know something about it. Seven years, d.i.c.k, man and wife, in rough sailing and smooth. And then she died, in the heart of the winter, died in childbirth, up there on the Chilcat Station. She held my hand to the last, the ice creeping up inside the door and spreading thick on the gut of the window. Outside, the lone howl of the wolf and the Silence; inside, death and the Silence. You"ve never heard the Silence yet, d.i.c.k, and Gawd grant you don"t ever have to hear it when you sit by the side of death. Hear it? Ay, till the breath whistles like a siren, and the heart booms, booms, booms, like the surf on the sh.o.r.e.
"Siwash, d.i.c.k, but a woman. White, d.i.c.k, white, clear through. Towards the last she says, "Keep my feather bed, Tommy, keep it always." And I agreed. Then she opened her eyes, full with the pain. "I"ve been a good woman to you, Tommy, and because of that I want you to promise--to promise"--the words seemed to stick in her throat--"that when you marry, the woman be white. No more Siwash, Tommy. I know. Plenty white women down to Juneau now. I know. Your people call you "squaw-man," your women turn their heads to the one side on the street, and you do not go to their cabins like other men. Why? Your wife Siwash. Is it not so?
And this is not good. Wherefore I die. Promise me. Kiss me in token of your promise."
"I kissed her, and she dozed off, whispering, "It is good." At the end, that near gone my ear was at her lips, she roused for the last time.
"Remember, Tommy; remember my feather bed." Then she died, in childbirth, up there on the Chilcat Station."