ostril quiver, nor an eyelid droop. But I saw that he looked wan
and gray, as I have seen old men look of bitter mornings when famine
pressed, and the women wailed and the children whimpered, and there
was no meat nor sign of meat. And as the old men looked, so looked
Ligoun.

"There was no sound. It were as a circle of the dead, but that each
chief felt beneath his blanket to make sure, and that each chief
glanced to his neighbor, right and left, with a measuring eye. I was
a stripling; the things I had seen were few; yet I knew it to be the
moment one meets but once in all a lifetime.

"The Stick rose up, with every eye upon him, and crossed the room till
he stood before Ligoun.

"'I am Opitsah, the Knife,' he said.

"But Ligoun said naught, nor looked at him, but gazed unblinking at
the ground.

"'You are Ligoun,' Opitsah said. 'You have killed many men. I am still
alive.'

"And still Ligoun said naught, though he made the sign to me and with
my strength arose and stood upright on his two feet. He was as an old
pine, naked and gray, but still a-shoulder to the frost and storm. His
eyes were unblinking, and as he had not heard Opitsah, so it seemed he
did not see him.

"And Opitsah was mad with anger, and danced stiff-legged before him,
as men do when they wish to give another shame. And Opitsah sang a
song of his own greatness and the greatness of his people, filled with
bad words for the Chilcats and for Ligoun. And as he danced and sang,
Opitsah threw off his blanket and with his knife drew bright circles
before the face of Ligoun. And the song he sang was the Song of the
Knife.

"And there was no other sound, only the singing of Opitsah, and the
circle of chiefs that were as dead, save that the flash of the knife
seemed to draw smouldering fire from their eyes. And Ligoun, also, was
very still. Yet did he know his death, and was unafraid. And the knife
sang closer and yet closer to his face, but his eyes were unblinking
and he swayed not to right or left, or this way or that.

"And Opitsah drove in the knife, so, twice on the forehead of Ligoun,
and the red blood leaped after it. And then it was that Ligoun gave me
the sign to bear up under him with my youth that he might walk. And he
laughed with a great scorn, full in the face of Opitsah, the Knife.
And he brushed Opitsah to the side, as one brushes to the side a
low-hanging branch on the trail and passes on.

"And I knew and understood, for there