t, and, moreover, it has an unusual
quantity of bones."

The hunters, grizzled and gray, and lusty and young, were aghast. The
like had never been known before. A child, that talked like a grown man,
and said harsh things to their very faces!

But steadily and with seriousness, Keesh went on. "For that I know my
father, Bok, was a great hunter, I speak these words. It is said that
Bok brought home more meat than any of the two best hunters, that with
his own hands he attended to the division of it, that with his own eyes
he saw to it that the least old woman and the least old man received
fair share."

"Na! Na!" the men cried. "Put the child out!" "Send him off to bed!" "He
is no man that he should talk to men and gray-beards!"

He waited calmly till the uproar died down.

"Thou hast a wife, Ugh-Gluk," he said, "and for her dost thou speak. And
thou, too, Massuk, a mother also, and for them dost thou speak. My
mother has no one, save me; wherefore I speak. As I say, though Bok be
dead because he hunted over-keenly, it is just that I, who am his son,
and that Ikeega, who is my mother and was his wife, should have meat in
plenty so long as there be meat in plenty in the tribe. I, Keesh, the
son of Bok, have spoken."

He sat down, his ears keenly alert to the flood of protest and
indignation his words had created.

"That a boy should speak in council!" old Ugh-Gluk was mumbling.

"Shall the babes in arms tell us men the things we shall do?" Massuk
demanded in a loud voice. "Am I a man that I should be made a mock by
every child that cries for meat?"

The anger boiled a white heat. They ordered him to bed, threatened that
he should have no meat at all, and promised him sore beatings for his
presumption. Keesh's eyes began to flash, and the blood to pound darkly
under his skin. In the midst of the abuse he sprang to his feet.

"Hear me, ye men!" he cried. "Never shall I speak in the council again,
never again till the men come to me and say, 'It is well, Keesh, that
thou shouldst speak, it is well and it is our wish.' Take this now, ye
men, for my last word. Bok, my father, was a great hunter. I too, his
son, shall go and hunt the meat that I eat. And be it known, now, that
the division of that which I kill shall be fair. And no widow nor weak
one shall cry in the night because there is no meat, when the strong men
are groaning in great pain for that they have eaten overmuch. And in the
days to come there shall b