"Dead men are not fat," Opee-Kwan confessed. "Thou hast fared well,
but it is strange. No man may mate with the off-shore wind and come
back on the heels of the years."
"I have come back," Nam-Bok answered simply.
"Mayhap thou art a shadow, then, a passing shadow of the Nam-Bok that
was. Shadows come back."
"I am hungry. Shadows do not eat."
But Opee-Kwan doubted, and brushed his hand across his brow in sore
puzzlement. Nam-Bok was likewise puzzled, and as he looked up and 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 wast 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 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."
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.
"Brothers," 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--"
"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. Opee-Kwan
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 where."
"It is so," Opee-Kwan supplemented gravely. "With the wind the going
is easy, but against the wind a man striveth hard; and for that they
had no paddles these men on the big canoe did not strive at all."
"Small need to strive," Nam-Bok cried angrily. "The schooner went
likewise against the wind."
"And what said you made the sch--sch--schooner go?" Koogah asked,
tripping craftily over the strange word.
"The wind," was the impatient response.
"Then the wind made the sch--sch--schooner go against the wind." Old
Koogah dropped an open leer to Opee-Kwan, and, the laughter growing
around him, continued: "The wind blows from the south and blows the
schooner south. The wind blows against the wind. The wind blows one
way and the other at the same time. It is very simple. We understand,
Nam-Bok. We clearly understand."
"Thou art a fool!"
"Truth falls from thy lips," Koogah answered meekly. "I was over-long
in understanding, and the thing was simple."
But Nam-Bok's face was dark, and he said rapid words which they had
never heard before. Bone-scratching and skin-scraping were resumed,
but he shut his lips tightly on the tongue that could not be believed.
"This sch--sch--schooner," Koogah imperturbably asked; "it was made of
a big tree?"
"It was made of many trees," Nam-Bok snapped shortly. "It was very
big."
He lapsed into sullen silence again, and Opee-Kwan nudged Koogah, who
shook his head with slow amazement and murmured, "It is very strange."
Nam-bok took the bait. "That is nothing," he said airily; "you should
see the _steamer_. As the grain of sand is to the bidarka, as the
bidarka is to the schooner, so the schooner is to the steamer.
Further, the steamer is made of iron. It is all iron."
"Nay, nay, Nam-Bok," cried the head man; "how can that be? Always iron
goes to the bottom. For behold, I received an iron knife in trade from
the head man of the next village, and yesterday the iron knife slipped
from my fingers and went down, down, into the sea. To all things there
be law. Never was there one thing outside the law. This we know. And,
moreover, we know that things of a kind have the one law, and that all
iron has the one law. So unsay thy words, Nam-Bok, that we may yet
honor thee."
"It is so," Nam-Bok persisted. "The steamer is all iron and does not
sink."
"Nay, nay; this cannot be."
"With my own eyes I saw it."
"It is not in the nature of things."
"But tell me, Nam-Bok," Koogah interrupted, for fear the tale would
go no farther, "tell me the manner of these men in finding their way
across the sea when there is no land by which to steer."
"The sun points out the path."
"But how?"
"At midday the head man of the schooner takes a thing through which
his eye looks at the sun, and then he makes the sun climb down out of
the sky to the edge of the earth."
"Now this be evil medicine!" cried Opee-Kwan, aghast at the sacrilege.
The men held up their hands in horror, and the women moaned. "This be
evil medicine. It is not good to misdirect the great sun which drives
away the night and gives us the seal, the salmon, and warm weather."
"What if it be evil medicine?" Nam-Bok demanded truculently. "I, too,
have looked through the thing at the sun and made the sun climb down
out of the sky."
Those who were nearest drew away from him hurriedly, and a woman
covered the face of a child at her breast so that his eye might not
fall upon it.
"But on the morning of the fourth day, O Nam-Bok," Koogah suggested;
"on the morning of the fourth day when the sch--sch--schooner came
after thee?"
"I had little strength left in me and could not run away. So I was
taken on board and water was poured down my throat and good food given
me. Twice, my brothers, you have seen a white man. These men were all
white and as many as have I fingers and toes. And when I saw they were
full of kindness, I took heart, and I resolved to bring away with me
report of all that I saw. And they taught me the work they did, and
gave me good food and a place to sleep.
"And day after day we went over the sea, and each day the head man
drew the sun down out of the sky and made it tell where we were. And
when the waves were kind, we hunted the fur seal and I marvelled much,
for always did they fling the meat and the fat away and save only the
skin."
Opee-Kwan's mouth was twitching violently, and he was about to make
denunciation of such waste when Koogah kicked him to be still.
"After a weary time, when the sun was gone and the bite of the frost
come into the air, the head man pointed the nose of the schooner
south. South and east we travelled for days upon days, with never the
land in sight, and we were near to the village from which hailed the
men--"
"How did they know they were near?" Opee-Kwan, unable to contain
himself longer, demanded. "There was no land to see."
Nam-Bok glowered on him wrathfully. "Did I not say the head man
brought the sun down out of the sky?"
Koogah interposed, and Nam-Bok went on.
"As I say, when we were near to that village a great storm blew up,
and in the night we were helpless and knew not where we were--"
"Thou hast just said the head man knew--"
"Oh, peace, Opee-Kwan! Thou art a fool and cannot understand. As I
say, we were helpless in the night, when I heard, above the roar of
the storm, the sound of the sea on the beach. And next we struck with
a mighty crash and I was in the water, swimming. It was a rock-bound
coast, with one patch of beach in many miles, and the law was that I
should dig my hands into the sand and draw myself clear of the surf.
The other men must have pounded against the rocks, for none of them
came ashore but the head man, and him I knew only by the ring on his
finger.
"When day came, there being nothing of the schooner, I turned my face
to the land and journeyed into it that I might get food and look upon
the faces of the people. And when I came to a house I was taken in and
given to eat, for I had learned their speech, and the white men are
ever kindly. And it was a house bigger than all the houses built by us
and our fathers before us."
"It was a mighty house," Koogah said, masking his unbelief with
wonder.
"And many trees went into the making of such a house," Opee-Kwan
added, taking the cue.
"That is nothing." Nam-Bok shrugged his shoulders in belittling
fashion. "As our houses are to that house, so that house was to the
houses I was yet to see."
"And they are not big men?"
"Nay; mere men like you and me," Nam-Bok answered. "I had cut a stick
that I might walk in comfort, and remembering that I was to bring
report to you, my brothers, I cut a notch in the stick for each person
who lived in that house. And I stayed there many days, and worked, for
which they gave me _money_--a thing of which you know nothing, but
which is very good.
"And one day I departed from that place to go farther into the land.
And as I walked I met many people, and I cut smaller notches in the
stick, that there might be room for all. Then I came upon a strange
thing. On the ground before me was a bar of iron, as big in thickness
as my arm, and a long step away was another bar of iron--"
"Then wert thou a rich man," Opee-Kwan asserted; "for iron be worth
more than anything else in the world. It would have made many knives."
"Nay, it was not mine."
"It was a find, and a find be lawful."
"Not so; the white men had placed it there And further, these bars
were so long that no man could carry them away--so long that as far as
I could see there was no end to them."
"Nam-Bok, that is very much iron," Opee-Kwan cautioned.
"Ay, it was hard to believe with my own eyes upon it; but I could not
gainsay my eyes. And as I looked I heard...." He turned abruptly upon
the head man. "Opee-Kwan, thou hast heard the sea-lion bellow in his
anger. Make it plain in thy mind of as many sea-lions as there be
waves to the sea, and make it plain that all these sea-lions be made
into one sea-lion, and as that one sea-lion would bellow so bellowed
the thing I heard."
The fisherfolk cried aloud in astonishment, and Opee-Kwan's jaw
lowered and remained lowered.
"And in the distance I saw a monster like unto a thousand whales.
It was one-eyed, and vomited smoke, and it snorted with exceeding
loudness. I was afraid and ran with shaking legs along the path
between the bars. But it came with the speed of the wind, this
monster, and I leaped the iron bars with its breath hot on my
face...."