himself the centre of accusing eyes, and looked accusingly upon his
fellows--each one and all, save Sime, and Sime was a scoffer whose
evil end was destined with a certitude his successes could not shake.

"Hoh! Hoh!" he laughed. "Devils and Klok-No-Ton!--than whom no greater
devil can be found in Thlinket Land."

"Thou fool! Even now he cometh with witcheries and sorceries; so
beware thy tongue, lest evil befall thee and thy days be short in the
land!"

So spoke La-lah, otherwise the Cheater, and Sime laughed scornfully.

"I am Sime, unused to fear, unafraid of the dark. I am a strong man,
as my father before me, and my head is clear. Nor you nor I have seen
with our eyes the unseen evil things--"

"But Scundoo hath," La-lah made answer. "And likewise Klok-No-Ton.
This we know."

"How dost thou know, son of a fool?" Sime thundered, the choleric
blood darkening his thick bull neck.

"By the word of their mouths--even so."

Sime snorted. "A shaman is only a man. May not his words be crooked,
even as thine and mine? Bah! Bah! And once more, bah! And this for thy
shamans and thy shamans' devils! and this! and this!"

And snapping his fingers to right and left, Sime strode through the
on-lookers, who made over-zealous and fearsome way for him.

"A good fisher and strong hunter, but an evil man," said one.

"Yet does he flourish," speculated another.

"Wherefore be thou evil and flourish," Sime retorted over his
shoulder. "And were all evil, there would be no need for shamans. Bah!
You children-afraid-of-the-dark!"

And when Klok-No-Ton arrived on the afternoon tide, Sime's defiant
laugh was unabated; nor did he forbear to make a joke when the shaman
tripped on the sand in the landing. Klok-No-Ton looked at him sourly,
and without greeting stalked straight through their midst to the house
of Scundoo.

Of the meeting with Scundoo none of the tribespeople might know, for
they clustered reverently in the distance and spoke in whispers while
the masters of mystery were together.

"Greeting, O Scundoo!" Klok-No-Ton rumbled, wavering perceptibly from
doubt of his reception.

He was a giant in stature, and towered massively above little Scundoo,
whose thin voice floated upward like the faint far rasping of a
cricket.

"Greeting, Klok-No-Ton," he returned. "The day is fair with thy
coming."

"Yet it would seem ..." Klok-No-Ton hesitated.

"Yea, yea," the little shaman put in impatiently, "that I have fallen