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Then will I look kindly upon thee once again, and all will be well." "So," the man pondered. "So." Then he turned and passed out through the light. "Nay, O Keesh!" she called after him. "Not two heads, but three at least!" But Keesh remained true to his conversion, lived uprightly, and made his tribespeople obey the gospel as propounded by the Rev. Jackson Brown.
Gnob nodded his head gravely, his gnarled and age-twisted face inscrutably masking the soul that dwelt behind. His narrow eyes burned like twin coals through their narrow slits, as he piped in a high-cracked voice, "But that is not all." "What more?" Keesh demanded. "Have I not offered full measure? Was there ever yet a Tana-naw maiden who fetched so great a price? Then name her!"
"It is said," old Gnob piped on, "that he has harkened to the speech of the white man up at the Big House, and that he bends head to the white man's god, and, moreover, that blood is displeasing to the white man's god." Keesh dropped his eyes, and his hands clenched passionately.
"I tell only of what my eyes beheld. And after a while the bear grew weak and tired, for he was very heavy and he had jumped about with exceeding violence, and he went off along the shore-ice, shaking his head slowly from side to side and sitting down ever and again to squeal and cry. And Keesh followed after the bear, and we followed after Keesh, and for that day and three days more we followed.
This be Kitz-noo, a slave. Strike, O Keesh, strike with the strength of thy arm!" The boy trembled and waited the stroke. Keesh looked at him, and thoughts of Mr. Brown's higher morality floated through his mind, and strong upon him was a vision of the leaping flames of Mr. Brown's particular brand of hell-fire.
As I say, though Bok be dead because he hunted over-keenly, it is just that I, who am his son, and that Ikeega, who is my mother and was his wife, should have meat in plenty so long as there be meat in plenty in the tribe. I, Keesh, the son of Bok, have spoken." He sat down, his ears keenly alert to the flood of protest and indignation his words had created.
The savage circle laughed derisively, and in the ear of Gnob whispered Madwan, the shaman, high-priest of the tribe and maker of medicine. The shaman poked among the shadows on the rim of the firelight and roused up a slender young boy, whom he brought face to face with Keesh; and in the hand of Keesh he thrust a knife. Gnob leaned forward. "Keesh! O Keesh! Darest thou to kill a man? Behold!
"It is said," Gnob's shrill voice piped, "it is said that Keesh does not walk in the way of his fathers. It is said that he has wandered into the dark, after strange gods, and that he is become afraid." The face of Keesh went dark. "It is a lie!" he thundered. "Keesh is afraid of no man!"
By this time he was quite sick, the bear, and could crawl no farther, so Keesh came up close and speared him to death." "And then?" Klosh-Kwan demanded. "Then we left Keesh skinning the bear, and came running that the news of the killing might be told." And in the afternoon of that day the women hauled in the meat of the bear while the men sat in council assembled.
Then will we hold the passes and the land, and perhaps our children and our children's children shall flourish and grow fat. There is a great struggle to come, when Wolf and Raven shall grapple; but Keesh will not fight, nor will he let his people fight. So it is not well that he should take to him my daughter. Thus have I spoken, I, Gnob, chief of the Tana-naw."
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