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He hunted some and fished some, but never far from Tana-naw Station, and he was at the large house often and long. And El-Soo measured him against many men and found him good. He sang songs to her, and was ardent and glowed until all Tana- naw Station knew he loved her. And Porportuk but grinned and advanced more money for the upkeep of the large house. Then came the death table of Klakee-Nah.
The shaking hand of a slave failed to catch it as it crashed to the floor. Klakee-Nah sank back, panting, watching the upturned glasses at the lips of the drinkers, his own lips slightly smiling to the applause. At a sign, two slaves attempted to help him sit upright again. But they were weak, his frame was mighty, and the four old men tottered and shook as they helped him forward.
"There are my mines on the Twisted Salmon." "They have never paid to work," was the reply. "There is my share in the steamer Koyokuk. I am half owner." "She is at the bottom of the Yukon." Klakee-Nah started. "True, I forgot. It was last spring when the ice went out." He mused for a time while the glasses remained untasted, and all the company waited upon his utterance.
Klakee-Nah, himself masterful, protested at this masterful conduct of his young daughter; but in the end, dreaming barbarically of magnificence, he went forth and borrowed a thousand dollars from old Porportuk, than whom there was no richer Indian on the Yukon. Also, Klakee-Nah ran up a heavy bill at the trading post. El-Soo re-created the large house.
"His house is large and empty, and he would hear thy voice and look upon thee." Him she remembered Klakee-Nah, the headman of the village, the friend of the missionaries and the traders, a large man thewed like a giant, with kindly eyes and masterful ways, and striding with a consciousness of crude royalty in his carriage. "Tell him that I will come," was El-Soo's answer.
Klakee-Nah sobered and looked at him, then reached for his glass, but could not touch it. A slave passed it to him, and glass and liquor he flung into the face of Porportuk. "Turn him out!" Klakee-Nah thundered to the waiting table that strained like a pack of hounds in leash. "And roll him in the snow!"
I but speak in fairness. It was for this I sent for you, Porportuk. Make out the note." "I have no dealings with the next world," Porportuk made answer slowly. "Have you no thought to meet me before the Great Father!" Klakee-Nah demanded. Then he added, "I shall surely be there." "I have no dealings with the next world," Porportuk repeated sourly. The dying man regarded him with frank amazement.
"There it is." Porportuk pointed at El-Soo. Klakee-Nah could not understand. He peered down the table, brushed his eyes, and peered again. "Your daughter, El-Soo her will I take and the debt be no more. I will burn the debt there in the candle." Klakee-Nah's great chest began to heave. "Ho! ho! a joke. Ho! ho! ho!" he laughed Homerically.
She invested it with new splendour, while Klakee-Nah maintained its ancient traditions of hospitality and revelry. All this was unusual for a Yukon Indian, but Klakee-Nah was an unusual Indian. Not alone did he like to render inordinate hospitality, but, what of being a chief and of acquiring much money, he was able to do it.
Porportuk referred to his memorandum. "Fifteen thousand nine hundred and sixty-seven dollars and seventy-five cents," he read with careful precision. "Make it sixteen thousand, make it sixteen thousand," Klakee-Nah said grandly. "Odd numbers were ever a worry. And now and it is for this that I have sent for you make me out a new note for sixteen thousand, which I shall sign.
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