each year came the
caribou uncountable. But now the hunter may take the trail ten days
and not one moose gladden his eyes, while the caribou uncountable come
no more at all. Small worth the gun, I say, killing a long way off,
when there be nothing to kill.

"And I, Imber, pondered upon these things, watching the while the
Whitefish, and the Pellys, and all the tribes of the land, perishing
as perished the meat of the forest. Long I pondered. I talked with the
shamans and the old men who were wise. I went apart that the sounds of
the village might not disturb me, and I ate no meat so that my belly
should not press upon me and make me slow of eye and ear. I sat long
and sleepless in the forest, wide-eyed for the sign, my ears patient
and keen for the word that was to come. And I wandered alone in the
blackness of night to the river bank, where was wind-moaning and
sobbing of water, and where I sought wisdom from the ghosts of old
shamans in the trees and dead and gone.

"And in the end, as in a vision, came to me the short-haired and
detestable dogs, and the way seemed plain. By the wisdom of Otsbaok,
my father and a strong man, had the blood of our own wolf-dogs been
kept clean, wherefore had they remained warm of hide and strong in
the harness. So I returned to my village and made oration to the men.
'This be a tribe, these white men,' I said. 'A very large tribe, and
doubtless there is no longer meat in their land, and they are come
among us to make a new land for themselves. But they weaken us, and we
die. They are a very hungry folk. Already has our meat gone from us,
and it were well, if we would live, that we deal by them as we have
dealt by their dogs.'

"And further oration I made, counselling fight. And the men of the
Whitefish listened, and some said one thing, and some another, and
some spoke of other and worthless things, and no man made brave talk
of deeds and war. But while the young men were weak as water and
afraid, I watched that the old men sat silent, and that in their eyes
fires came and went. And later, when the village slept and no one
knew, I drew the old men away into the forest and made more talk. And
now we were agreed, and we remembered the good young days, and the
free land, and the times of plenty, and the gladness and sunshine; and
we called ourselves brothers, and swore great secrecy, and a mighty
oath to cleanse the land of the evil breed that had come upon it. It
be plain we were foo