e's bunk and with forced lightness call softly:

"Come, Loll, son. Hop up now. We must be after the birds this fine
morning!"

"Oh, dad! I don't want to kill any more--I can't do it, dad! . . .
Let this morning go by . . . please!" . . .

"Whist, lad! Your mother'll hear you. Come along now, son, we'll talk
it over on the outside."

"Oh, please, _please_ . . ."

Quickly Ellen would put her fingers over her ears that she might not
hear the beseeching little-boy voice, but she knew the moment Shane
lifted the reluctant child from his warm bunk, and she knew, too, that
Shane's heart must be aching with the pity of it, as was her own.

One morning, thinking they had gone, she raised her head to note the
hour. There was the sound of a quick step on the porch outside.

"Oh, dad!" came Lollie's pleading tones, and Ellen knew just how his
grey eyes, big now in his small thin face, were raised to his father's,
"dad, if you could see them down there under the leaves, strutting so
cute-like and innocent in front of their little tunnel nests getting
ready for their babies!" Then with passionate intensity: "Today . . .
couldn't you just let me off for to-day, dad?" Inspired, perhaps, by
some shade of feeling in Shane's eyes he went on with hurried,
promising emphasis: "An' _tomorrow_, maybe tomorrow, dad, I'll feel
like getting lots of 'em! Honest, maybe I will!"

Ellen, with a moan of mental anguish, buried her face in her pillow and
covered her ears to shut out the rest. That her boy, friend and lover
of all wild things, was obliged, against his will, to slaughter birds
in order that they might live seemed more than she could bear.

And as if to add to the hopelessness of the situation, daily now
steamers and sailing vessels passed far out on the North Pacific, but
none swerved in its course. There was nothing to hinder the _Hoonah's_
coming--nothing but the word of the White Chief of Katleean. Ellen
chafed inwardly as the long, light days and nights dragged by. Help
must come soon, and for some time she had been counting the hours until
the pigeon's wing-feathers should grow out again. As soon as the bird
could fly she was going to take it to the Lookout and speed it on its
way with her message of capitulation to Paul Kilbuck.

The long sunny days of May passed, turning Kon Klayu into a garden of
wild flowers. It was violet time with great bunches of purple blossoms
nodding against the hillsides. Above