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—"
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"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
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."
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"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 overlong 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."
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"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."
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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."
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"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 . . ."
Opee-Kwan gained control of his jaw again. "And—and then, O Nam-
Bok?"
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"Then it came by on the bars, and harmed me not; and when my legs could
hold me up again it was gone from sight. And it is a very common thing in
that country. Even the women and children are not afraid. Men make them
to do work, these monsters."
"As we make our dogs do work?" Koogah asked, with sceptic twinkle m
his eye.
"Ay, as we make our dogs do work."
"And how do they breed these—these things?" Opee-Kwan questioned.
"They breed not at all. Men fashion them cunningly of iron, and feed them
with stone, and give them water to drink. The stone becomes fire, and the
water becomes steam, and the steam of the water is the breath of their
nostrils, and—"
"There, there, O Nam-Bok," Opee-Kwan interrupted. "Tell us of other
wonders. We grow tired of this which we may not understand."
"You do not understand?" Nam-Bok asked despairingly.
"Nay, we do not understand," the men and women wailed back. "We
cannot understand."
Nam-Bok thought of a combined harvester, and of the machines wherein
visions of living men were to be seen, and of the machines from which
came the voices of men, and he knew his people could never understand.
"Dare I say I rode this iron monster through the land?" he asked bitterly.
Opee-Kwan threw up his hands, palms outward, in open incredulity. "Say
on; say anything. We listen."
"Then did I ride the iron monster, for which I gave money—"
"Thou saidst it was fed with stone."
"And likewise, thou fool, I said money was a thing of which you know
nothing. As I say, I rode the monster through the land, and through many
villages, until I came to a big village on a salt arm of the sea. And the
houses shoved their roofs among the stars in the sky, anal the clouds
d
rifted by them, and everywhere was much smoke. And the roar of that
village was like the roar of the sea in storm, and the people were so many
that I flung away my stick and no longer remembered the I notches upon
it."
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"Hadst thou made small notches," Koogah reproved, "thou mightst | have
brought report."
Nam-Bok whirled upon him in anger. "Had I made small notches! Listen,
Koogah, thou scratcher of bone! If I had made small notches, neither the
stick, nor twenty sticks, could have borne them—nay, not all the driftwood
of all the beaches between this village and the next. And if all of you, the
women and children as well, were twenty times as many, and if you had
twenty hands each, and in each hand a stick and a knife, still the notches
could not be cut for the people I saw, so many were they and so fast did
they come and go."
"There cannot be so many people in the world," Opee-Kwan objected, for
he was stunned and his mind could not grasp such magnitude of numbers.
"What cost thou know of all the world and how large it is?" NamBok
demanded.
"But there cannot be so many people in one place."
"Who art thou to say what can be and what cannot be?"
"It stands to reason there cannot be so many people in one place. Their
canoes would clutter the sea till there was no room. And they could empty
the sea each day of its fish, and they would not all be fed."
"So it would seem," Nam-Bok made final answer; "yet it was so. With my
own eyes I saw, and flung my stick away." He yawned heavily and rose to
his feet. "I have paddled far. The day has been long, and I am tired. Now I
will sleep, and to-morrow we will have further talk upon the things I have
seen."
Bask-Wah-Wan, hobbling fearfully in advance, proud indeed, yet awed by
her wonderful son, led him to her igloo and stowed him away among the
greasy, ill-smelling furs. But the men lingered by the fire, and a council
was held wherein was there much whispering and lowvoiced discussion.
An hour passed, and a second, and Nam-Bok slept, and the talk went on.
The evening sun dipped toward the northwest, and at eleven at night was
nearly due north. Then it was that the head man and the bonescratcher
separated themselves from the council and aroused Nam-Bok. He blinked
up into their faces and turned on his side to sleep again. Opee-Kwan
Children of the Frost Page 5
