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Scundoo stopped her. "We be poor people and have little," she whimpered. "So be not hard upon us, O Scundoo." The people ceased from the quivering stone-pile they had builded, and looked on. "Nay, it was never my way, good Hooniah," Scundoo made answer, reaching for the blankets. "In token that I am not hard, these only shall I take." "Am I not wise, my children?" he demanded.
Scundoo smiled yet more wan and gray, closed the door on the heels of his departing visitor, and barred and double-barred it. Sime was mending his canoe when Klok-No-Ton came down the beach, and he broke off from his work only long enough to ostentatiously load his rifle and place it near him. The shaman noted the action and called out: "Let all the people come together on this spot!
"In the large skin-bale in my house, the one slung by the ridge-pole," came the answer. "But it was a joke, I say, only " Scundoo nodded his head, and the air went thick with flying stones. Sime's wife was crying silently, her head upon her knees; but his little boy, with shrieks and laughter, was flinging stones with the rest. Hooniah came waddling back with the precious blankets.
The body was thrown into the sea after that, but the waves tossed it back again and again as a curse upon the village, nor did it finally go away till two strong men were staked out at low tide and drowned. And Hooniah had sent for this Klok-No-Ton. Better had it been if Scundoo, their own shaman, were undisgraced.
"Yea," Bawn answered complacently. "Scundoo groweth old, and we stand in need of a new shaman." "Where now is the wisdom of Jelchs?" Sime snickered in La-lah's ear. La-lah brushed his brow in a puzzled manner and said nothing. Sime threw his chest out arrogantly and strutted up to the little shaman. "Hoh! Hoh! As I said, nothing has come of it!"
"Ever hast thou dealt in strong medicine," he said. "Doubtless the evil-doer will be briefly known to thee." "Ay, briefly known when I set eyes upon him." Again Klok-No-Ton hesitated. "Have there been gossips from other places?" he asked. Scundoo shook his head. "Behold! Is this not a most excellent mucluc?"
Ashore there was a clamor for Scundoo, and the whole population crowded his door, entreating and imploring in confused babel till he came forth and raised his hand. "In that ye are my children I pardon freely," he said. "But never again. For the last time thy foolishness goes unpunished. That which ye wish shall be granted, and it be already known to me.
"Often have I thought," Scundoo concluded, his voice falling as he came to a full pause. "It is a fair day, and thy medicine be strong, Klok-No-Ton." Klok-No-Ton's face brightened. "Thou art a great man, Scundoo, a shaman of shamans. I go now. I shall remember thee always. And the man La-lah, as you say, is a remarkable man."
"Yea, yea," the little shaman put in impatiently, "that I have fallen on ill days, else would I not stand in gratitude to you in that you do my work." "It grieves me, friend Scundoo ..." "Nay, I am made glad, Klok-No-Ton." "But will I give thee half of that which be given me." "Not so, good Klok-No-Ton," murmured Scundoo, with a deprecatory wave of the hand.
"Thou art indeed wise, O Scundoo!" they cried in one voice. And he went away into the darkness, the blankets around him, and Jelchs nodding sleepily under his arm. Mandell is an obscure village on the rim of the polar sea. It is not large, and the people are peaceable, more peaceable even than those of the adjacent tribes.
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