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"All that you have asked shall be yours," Makamuk cried in a rush of acceptance. "Proceed to make your medicine." Subienkow concealed his elation. He was playing a desperate game, and there must be no slips. He spoke arrogantly. "You have been slow. My medicine is offended. To make the offence clean you must give me your daughter."
There they lay the soft-featured Nee-Koo; the gnarled old face of Gnob; Makamuk, grinning at her with his lifted upper lip; and lastly, Nossabok, his eyelid, up to its old trick, drooped on his girlish cheek in a suggestive wink. There they lay, the firelight flashing upon and playing over them, and from each of them a widening circle dyed the snow to scarlet.
Still they continued to roar out their laughter. Makamuk turned, and with bowed head stalked away. He knew that thenceforth he would be no longer known as Makamuk.
"The words are the chiefest strength of it. Behold, it is ready." "Name the words slowly, that I may know them," Makamuk commanded. "Not until after the test. When the axe flies back three times from my neck, then will I give you the secret of the words." "But if the medicine is not good medicine?" Makamuk queried anxiously. Subienkow turned upon him wrathfully. "My medicine is always good.
"Besides," whispered Yakaga, when the Pole, with his guard, had disappeared among the spruce trees, "when you have learned the medicine you can easily destroy him." "But how can I destroy him?" Makamuk argued. "His medicine will not let me destroy him." "There will be some part where he has not rubbed the medicine," was Yakaga's reply. "We will destroy him through that part. It may be his ears.
"Who was Lost Face?" he could hear, in anticipation, some insolent young buck demand, "Oh, Lost Face," would be the answer, "he who once was Makamuk in the days before he cut off the fur-thief's head." All lines had been cast off, and the Seattle No. 4 was pulling slowly out from the shore.
He blew cigarette smoke out on the icy air, and curiously regarded what remained of the big Cossack. "That scar!" Makamuk said suddenly, pointing to the Pole's neck, where a livid mark advertised the slash of a knife in a Kamtchatkan brawl. "The medicine is not good. The cutting edge was stronger than the medicine." "It was a strong man that drove the stroke."
"I will let you go down river," said Makamuk; "and the sled and the dogs and the six hunters to give you safety shall be yours." "You are slow," was the cool rejoinder. "You have committed an offence against my medicine in that you did not at once accept my terms. Behold, I now demand more. I want one hundred beaver skins." "I want one hundred pounds of dried fish."
Makamuk and Yakaga crouched beside him, noting the quantities and kinds of the ingredients he dropped into the pot of boiling water. "You must be careful that the moss-berries go in first," he explained. "And oh, yes, one other thing the finger of a man. Here, Yakaga, let me cut off your finger." But Yakaga put his hands behind him and scowled. "Just a small finger," Subienkow pleaded.
Behold, I have a great medicine. I alone know this medicine. Since I am not going to die, I shall exchange this medicine with you." "What is this medicine?" Makamuk demanded. "It is a strange medicine." Subienkow debated with himself for a moment, as if loth to part with the secret. "I will tell you.
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