said by way of greeting.

"Nay," Imber answered. "Thou art Howkan who went away. Thy mother be
dead."

"She was an old woman," said Howkan.

But Imber did not hear, and Howkan, with hand upon his shoulder,
roused him again.

"I shall speak to thee what the man has spoken, which is the tale of
the troubles thou hast done and which thou hast told, O fool, to the
Captain Alexander. And thou shalt understand and say if it be true
talk or talk not true. It is so commanded."

Howkan had fallen among the mission folk and been taught by them to
read and write. In his hands he held the many fine sheets from which
the man had read aloud, and which had been taken down by a clerk when
Imber first made confession, through the mouth of Jimmy, to Captain
Alexander. Howkan began to read. Imber listened for a space, when a
wonderment rose up in his face and he broke in abruptly.

"That be my talk, Howkan. Yet from thy lips it comes when thy ears
have not heard."

Howkan smirked with self-appreciation. His hair was parted in the
middle. "Nay, from the paper it comes, O Imber. Never have my ears
heard. From the paper it comes, through my eyes, into my head, and out
of my mouth to thee. Thus it comes."

"Thus it comes? It be there in the paper?" Imber's voice sank in
whisperful awe as he crackled the sheets 'twixt thumb and finger and
stared at the charactery scrawled thereon. "It be a great medicine,
Howkan, and thou art a worker of wonders."

"It be nothing, it be nothing," the young man responded carelessly
and pridefully. He read at hazard from the document: "_In that year,
before the break of the ice, came an old man, and a boy who was
lame of one foot. These also did I kill, and the old man made much
noise--_"

"It be true," Imber interrupted breathlessly. "He made much noise and
would not die for a long time. But how dost thou know, Howkan? The
chief man of the white men told thee, mayhap? No one beheld me, and
him alone have I told."

Howkan shook his head with impatience. "Have I not told thee it be
there in the paper, O fool?"

Imber stared hard at the ink-scrawled surface. "As the hunter looks
upon the snow and says, Here but yesterday there passed a rabbit; and
here by the willow scrub it stood and listened, and heard, and was
afraid; and here it turned upon its trail; and here it went with great
swiftness, leaping wide; and here, with greater swiftness and wider
leapings, came a lynx; and here, where the claw