to
death. He coughed of cold weather and camp smoke, and often the red
blood ran from out his mouth till we looked for him to die.

"'Nay,' he said once at such time; 'it were better that I should die
when the blood leaps to the knife, and there is a clash of steel and
smell of powder, and men crying aloud what of the cold iron and quick
lead.' So, it be plain, O Hair-Face, that his heart was yet strong for
battle.

"It is very far from the Chilcat to the Skoot, and we were many days
in the canoes. And the while the men bent to the paddles, I sat at the
feet of Ligoun and received the Law. Of small need for me to say the
Law, O Hair-Face, for it be known to me that in this thou art well
skilled. Yet do I speak of the Law of blood for blood, and rank for
rank. Also did Ligoun go deeper into the matter, saying:--

"'But know this, O Olo, that there be little honor in the killing of a
man less than thee. Kill always the man who is greater, and thy honor
shall be according to his greatness. But if, of two men, thou killest
the lesser, then is shame thine, for which the very squaws will lift
their lips at thee. As I say, peace be good; but remember, O Olo, if
kill thou must, that thou killest by the Law.'

"It is a way of the Thlinket-folk," Palitlum vouchsafed half
apologetically.

And I remembered the gun-fighters and bad men of my own Western land,
and was not perplexed at the way of the Thlinket-folk.

"In time," Palitlum continued, "we came to Chief Niblack and the
Skoots. It was a feast great almost as the potlatch of Ligoun. There
were we of the Chilcat, and the Sitkas, and the Stickeens who are
neighbors to the Skoots, and the Wrangels and the Hoonahs. There were
Sundowns and Tahkos from Port Houghton, and their neighbors the Awks
from Douglass Channel; the Naass River people, and the Tongas from
north of Dixon, and the Kakes who come from the island called
Kupreanoff. Then there were Siwashes from Vancouver, Cassiars from the
Gold Mountains, Teslin men, and even Sticks from the Yukon Country.

"It was a mighty gathering. But first of all, there was to be a
meeting of the chiefs with Niblack, and a drowning of all enmities in
quass. The Russians it was who showed us the way of making quass, for
so my father told me,--my father, who got it from his father before
him. But to this quass had Niblack added many things, such as sugar,
flour, dried apples, and hops, so that it was a man's drink, strong
and good. No