Katleean. Ellen's fingers slipped over the severed ends, then
flattened themselves forcibly over the latch on the pigeon's cage.
"No! No!" Passionately the words had escaped her as she turned her
back on the cage. Meeting Jean's questioning eyes she had flushed and
gone on into the house without speaking.

Always, at night, as Jean lay thinking, this incident drifted with
curious insistency through her mind.

As the storm continued through dreary days, blowing always from the
southwest, the strange, reverberating roll from the south cliffs came
more loudly than ever before. Listening to it sometimes, Jean would
shiver at the hint of the supernatural in its cadence.

The continual thundering of the surf on the beach and the trembling of
the cabin in the rainy blasts of the gale finally began to tell on the
nerves of those confined in such small quarters. Gradually the talk at
the table grew less. Even Kayak Bill ceased his monologues. He and
Shane smoked more than ever and buried themselves in the reading of the
old magazines and papers. Ellen seemed more affected than any of them.
Her face had become drawn and haggard. She was so inattentive to
Loll's questions when the daily lessons were in progress that the
little boy grew impatient and asked Jean to help him instead. Then,
too, Ellen's strange solicitude for the pigeon increased until it was
with difficulty that Shane could prevent her bringing the bird into the
cabin during the gale.

One night Jean woke from a troubled doze. Everywhere was a strange,
arresting stillness. She realized in a moment that the wind had gone
down. The roar of the breakers which had been so loud and constant,
now sounded muffled. Her first feeling was one of intense happiness
and relief. The storm was over at last--the longest storm she had ever
known. Surely, now, she thought, the _Hoonah_ would come.

Though she knew it must be after midnight there was a murmur of voices
in the living-room. A chair scraped along the floor. Then came Kayak
Bill's tones, distinctly and with a gravity that sent a chill through
her. He was evidently concluding some argument.

"But I'm a-tellin' you, Boreland, that there's nary a Injine or a white
on the Alasky coast that'll venture nigh the Island o' Kon Klayu after
November first----"

"Great God, Kayak!" Boreland's protest cut him short. "Kilbuck
_knows_ we haven't enough grub for the winter! He wouldn't leave us
here to sta