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 Iremembered 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 scrape they'd got into; every shame that'd fallen them.And Iburned 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 passed it off by laughing hollowly.
"So be.When I passed 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 lass, and Ididn'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, makum 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 Douglass 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," **** 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.
"Nobody took note of me, the blanket over my head and hiding my face, and I waded knee deep through the dogs and youngsters till Iwas 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 sailor-man courting his sister.