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Updated: April 30, 2025
"Then will I call the name aloud, each in his turn and hers, till all are called." Thereat La-lah was first chosen, and he passed in at once. Every ear strained, and through the silence they could hear his footsteps creaking across the rickety floor. But that was all. Jelchs made no outcry, gave no sign.
"Now shall all be made clear and plain, and content rest upon us once again," La-lah declaimed oracularly. "Because of Scundoo, the little man," Sime sneered. "Because of the medicine of Scundoo, the little man," La-lah corrected. "Children of foolishness, these Thlinket people!" Sime smote his thigh a resounding blow.
He held up the foot-covering of sealskin and walrus hide, and his visitor examined it with secret interest. "It did come to me by a close-driven bargain." Klok-No-Ton nodded attentively. "I got it from the man La-lah. He is a remarkable man, and often have I thought ..." "So?" Klok-No-Ton ventured impatiently.
Bawn was next chosen, for it well might be that a man should steal his own blankets with intent to cast shame upon his neighbors. Hooniah followed, and other women and children, but without result. "Sime!" Scundoo called out. "Sime!" he repeated. But Sime did not stir. "Art thou afraid of the dark?" La-lah, his own integrity being proved, demanded fiercely. Sime chuckled.
"But Scundoo hath," La-lah made answer. "And likewise Klok-No-Ton. This we know." "How dost thou know, son of a fool?" Sime thundered, the choleric blood darkening his thick bull neck. "By the word of their mouths even so." Sime snorted. "A shaman is only a man. May not his words be crooked, even as thine and mine? Bah! Bah! And once more, bah!
Even now he cometh with witcheries and sorceries; so beware thy tongue, lest evil befall thee and thy days be short in the land!" So spoke La-lah, otherwise the Cheater, and Sime laughed scornfully. "I am Sime, unused to fear, unafraid of the dark. I am a strong man, as my father before me, and my head is clear. Nor you nor I have seen with our eyes the unseen evil things "
A low moaning, as of the dead, greeted this, and the people cowered with shaking knees as the dread finger passed them slowly by. For death went with it, and life remained with those who watched it go; and being rejected, they watched with eager intentness. Finally, with a tremendous cry, the fateful finger rested upon La-lah.
"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."
"And thou shalt be paid nothing for thy medicine which is of no avail," announced Hooniah, on her feet once more and smarting from a sense of ridiculousness. But Klok-No-Ton saw only the face of Scundoo and its wan, gray smile, heard only the faint far cricket's rasping. "I got it from the man La-lah, and often have I thought," and, "It is a fair day and thy medicine be strong."
"I laugh at it all, for it is a great foolishness. Yet will I go in, not in belief in wonders, but in token that I am unafraid." And he passed in boldly, and came out still mocking. "Some day shalt thou die with great suddenness," La-lah whispered, righteously indignant. "I doubt not," the scoffer answered airily. "Few men of us die in our beds, what of the shamans and the deep sea."
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