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"He has tales to tell," Koogah muttered. "And presents," a woman seconded. And Opee-Kwan knew that his people were eager, and further, he was aware himself of an itching curiosity concerning those untold tales. "The fishing has been good," he said judiciously, "and we have oil in plenty. So come, Nam-Bok, let us feast."
Opee-Kwan gripped him by the arm and kindly but firmly shook his senses back into him. "Come, Nam-Bok, arise!" he commanded. "It be time." "Another feast?" Nam-Bok cried. "Nay, I am not hungry. Go on with the eating and let me sleep." "Time to be gone!" Koogah thundered. But Opee-Kwan spoke more softly. "Thou wast bidarka-mate with me when we were boys," he said.
"I bore thee, Nam-Bok, and I gave thee suck when thou wast little," Bask-Wah-Wan whimpered, drawing closer; "and shadow though thou be, or no shadow, I will give thee to eat now." Nam-Bok made to come to her, but a growl of fear and menace warned him back. He said something angrily in a strange tongue, and added, "No shadow am I, but a man." "Who may know concerning the things of mystery?"
"Together we first chased the seal and drew the salmon from the traps. And thou didst drag me back to life, Nam-Bok, when the sea closed over me and I was sucked down to the black rocks. Together we hungered and bore the chill of the frost, and together we crawled beneath the one fur and lay close to each other.
The wind blows one way and the other at the same time. It is very simple. We understand, Nam-Bok. We clearly understand." "Thou art a fool!" "Truth falls from thy lips," Koogah answered meekly. "I was over-long in understanding, and the thing was simple." But Nam-Bok's face was dark, and he said rapid words which they had never heard before.
"He has tales to tell," Koogah muttered. "And presents," a woman seconded. And Opee-Kwan knew that his people were eager, and further, he was aware himself of an itching curiosity concerning those untold tales. "The fishing has been good," he said judiciously, "and we have oil in plenty. So come, Nam-Bok, let us feast."
Look! a bidarka, and one man who drives clumsily with a paddle!" Old Bask-Wah-Wan rose to her knees, trembling with weakness and eagerness, and gazed out over the sea. "Nam-Bok was ever clumsy at the paddle," she maundered reminiscently, shading the sun from her eyes and staring across the silver-spilled water. "Nam-Bok was ever clumsy. I remember...."
"And how do they breed these these things?" Opee-Kwan questioned. "They breed not at all. Men fashion them cunningly of iron, and feed them with stone, and give them water to drink. The stone becomes fire, and the water becomes steam, and the steam of the water is the breath of their nostrils, and " "There, there, O Nam-Bok," Opee-Kwan interrupted. "Tell us of other wonders.
She debated a moment, while the bidarka drifted swiftly from her, then raised her voice to a quavering treble. "I am old, Nam-Bok, and soon I shall pass down among the shadows. But I have no wish to go before my time. I am old, Nam-Bok, and I am afraid." A shaft of light shot across the dim-lit sea and wrapped boat and man in a splendor of red and gold.
"Listen to the words of Nam-Bok, thy son. There be room in his bidarka for two, and he would that thou camest with him. For his journey is to where there are fish and oil in plenty. There the frost comes not, and life is easy, and the things of iron do the work of men. Wilt thou come, O Bask-Wah-Wan?"
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