asks. 'Chief George,' says he.
'_Potlach_. Killisnoo, makum _klooch_.'

"Ay, it was bitter--the Taku howling down out of the north, the salt
water freezing quick as it struck the deck, and the old sloop and I
hammering into the teeth of it for a hundred miles to Dyea. Had a
Douglass Islander for crew when I started, but midway up he was washed
over from the bows. Jibed all over and crossed the course three times,
but never a sign of him."

"Doubled up with the cold most likely," Dick suggested, putting a pause
into the narrative while he hung one of Molly's skirts up to dry, "and
went down like a pot of lead."

"My idea. So I finished the course alone, half-dead when I made Dyea in
the dark of the evening. The tide favored, and I ran the sloop plump to
the bank, in the shelter of the river. Couldn't go an inch further, for
the fresh water was frozen solid. Halyards and blocks were that iced up
I didn't dare lower mainsail or jib. First I broached a pint of the
cargo raw, and then, leaving all standing, ready for the start, and with
a blanket around me, headed across the flat to the camp. No mistaking,
it was a grand layout. The Chilcats had come in a body--dogs, babies,
and canoes--to say nothing of the Dog-Ears, the Little Salmons, and the
Missions. Full half a thousand of them to celebrate Tilly's wedding, and
never a white man in a score of miles.

"Nobody took note of me, the blanket over my head and hiding my face, and
I waded knee deep through the dogs and youngsters till I was well up to
the front. The show was being pulled off in a big open place among the
trees, with great fires burning and the snow moccasin-packed as hard as
Portland cement. Next me was Tilly, beaded and scarlet-clothed galore,
and against her Chief George and his head men. The shaman was being
helped out by the big medicines from the other tribes, and it shivered my
spine up and down, the deviltries they cut. I caught myself wondering if
the folks in Liverpool could only see me now; and I thought of yellow-
haired Gussie, whose brother I licked after my first voyage, just because
he was not for having a sailorman courting his sister. And with Gussie
in my eyes I looked at Tilly. A rum old world, thinks I, with man
a-stepping in trails the mother little dreamed of when he lay at suck.

"So be. When the noise was loudest, walrus hides booming and priests a-
singing, I says, 'Are you ready?' Gawd! Not a start, not a shot