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He ceased, puffed at the pipe, found that it was out, and passed it over to Zilla, who took the sneer at the white man off her lips in order to pucker them about the pipe-stem. Ebbits seemed sinking back into his senility with the tale untold, and I demanded: "What of thy sons, Moklan and Bidarshik? And why is it that you and your old woman are without meat at the end of your years?"
Also is there bad water at Cambell Fort, where the Yukon goes slim like a maiden, and the water is fast, and the currents rush this way and that and come together, and there are whirls and sucks, and always are the currents changing and the face of the water changing, so at any two times it is never the same. Moklan is my son, wherefore he is brave man " "Was not my father brave man?"
He talk about where Moklan has gone, now he is dead. There be large fires in that place, and if missionary make true talk, I know that Moklan will be cold no more. Also the missionary talk about where I shall go when I am dead. And he say bad things. He say that I am blind. Which is a lie. He say that I am in great darkness. Which is a lie.
Zilla demanded. "Thy father was brave man," Ebbits acknowledged, with the air of one who will keep peace in the house at any cost. "Moklan is thy son and mine, wherefore he is brave. Mayhap, because of thy very brave father, Moklan is too brave. It is like when too much water is put in the pot it spills over. So too much bravery is put into Moklan, and the bravery spills over.
And so I come back from Cambell Fort, and no payment has been made, and Moklan is dead, and in my old age I am without fish and meat." "Because of the white man," said Zilla. "Because of the white man," Ebbits concurred. "And other things because of the white man. There was Bidarshik.
I insisted. "Thy very strong sons and thine old-age hunger?" "There was Moklan," Ebbits began. "A strong man," interrupted the mother. "He could dip paddle all of a day and night and never stop for the need of rest. He was wise in the way of the salmon and in the way of the water. He was very wise." "There was Moklan," Ebbits repeated, ignoring the interruption.
"Where be thy strong son, Moklan, and the fish he was ever willing to bring that you might eat?" The old man shook his head. "And where be Bidarshik, thy strong son? Ever was he a mighty hunter, and ever did he bring thee the good back-fat and the sweet dried tongues of the moose and the caribou. I see no back-fat and no sweet dried tongues.
"The young men are much afraid of the bad water at Cambell Fort. But Moklan is not afraid. He laughs strong, Ho! ho! and he goes forth into the bad water. But where the currents come together the canoe is turned over. A whirl takes Moklan by the legs, and he goes around and around, and down and down, and is seen no more." "Ai! ai!" wailed Zilla. "Crafty and wise was he, and my first-born!"
"Know, O White Man, that it is because of thy kind, because of all white men, that my man and I have no meat in our old age and sit without tobacco in the cold." "Nay," Ebbits said gravely, with a stricter sense of justice. "Wrong has been done us, it be true; but the white men did not mean the wrong." "Where be Moklan?" she demanded.
"I am the father of Moklan," Ebbits said, having patiently given the woman space for her noise. "I get into canoe and journey down to Cambell Fort to collect the debt!" "Debt!" interrupted. "What debt?" "The debt of Jones, who is chief trader," came the answer. "Such is the law of travel in a strange country."
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