ppressed the
brain and weighted down the eyelids of those who had just left the pure
cold air beyond the curtained doorway.

Steve was not without a feeling of apprehension. He was in the presence
of the active operation of the subtle drug. He had read the dead
chemist's papers. He knew the deadly exhalations of the weed when
growing, or when in an undried state. He also knew that distillation
robbed it of its poisonous effect, but for all that, the sickly
atmosphere left him with a feeling of nausea.

He and An-ina were sitting beyond one of the two wood fires that had
been replenished. The old chief, Wanak-aha, was squatting on his
haunches amongst his frowsy fur robes at the opposite side. He was a
shrivelled, age-weazened creature whose buckskin garments looked never
to have been removed from his aged body. His years would have been
impossible to guess at. All that was certain about him was that his
mahogany face was like creased parchment, that his eyes peered out in
the dim light of the hut through the narrowest of slits, that he was
alert, vital to an astounding degree, and that he suggested a foulness
such as humanity rarely sinks to.

An-ina was speaking in the tongue native to the old man, who was
replying in his monosyllabic fashion while he kept all his regard for
the stern-eyed white man, who, the squaw was explaining, represented all
the unlimited power of the white peoples.

Steve waited in patience for the completion of these necessary
preliminaries, and acted his part with the confidence of wide
experience. And presently An-ina turned to him. Her eyes were serious,
but there was a smile behind her words.

"Him say him much big friend for white man," she said, in her broken
way. "Him love all white man so as a brother. White man mak plenty good
trade with Indian man. It much good. So him big chief plenty friend. Oh,
yes."

Steve inclined his head seriously.

"Tell him that's all right," he said. "Tell him white man good friend,
too. White man love all Indian man. Tell him all white man children of
Great White Chief. When they die Great White Chief know. If Indian man
kill white man then Great White Chief send all thunder and lightning and
kill up all Indian man. Tell him Great White Chief know that two white
men all killed dead by great waters. He know Chief Wanak-aha's young men
find them. Great White Chief knows Indian man didn't kill them, but, as
he knows where they are, he must show the Gre