Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 22, 2025
Listen to that, Smoke!" Three ancient squaws had halted midway between the bachelors' camp and the camp of McCan, and the oldest was declaiming in shrill falsetto. Smoke recognized the names, but not all the words, and Shorty translated with melancholy glee. "Labiskwee, the daughter of Snass, the Rainmaker, the Great Chief, lights her first maiden's fire to-night.
Strayed that's how it happened froze to death within a mile of camp." It was on the same night that Snass said to Smoke: "You'd better pick out a wife and have a fire of your own. You will be more comfortable than with those young bucks. The maidens' fires a sort of feast of the virgins, you know are not lighted until full summer and the salmon, but I can give orders earlier if you say the word."
The rescue expedition never found a trace of them." "I found them," Snass said. "But both were dead." "The world still doesn't know. The word never got out." "The word never gets out," Snass assured him pleasantly. "You mean if they had been alive when you found them ?" Snass nodded. "They would have lived on with me and my people." "Anton got out," Smoke challenged. "I do not remember the name.
But we don't starve often. And it's more natural than the hand-reared meat of the cities." "I see you don't like cities," Smoke laughed, in order to be saying something; and was immediately startled by the transformation Snass underwent. Quite like a sensitive plant, the man's entire form seemed to wilt and quiver.
Smoke laughed and shook his head. "Remember," Snass concluded quietly, "Anton is the only one that ever got away. He was lucky, unusually lucky." Her father had a will of iron, Labiskwee told Smoke. "Four Eyes used to call him the Frozen Pirate whatever that means the Tyrant of the Frost, the Cave Bear, the Beast Primitive, the King of the Caribou, the Bearded Pard, and lots of such things.
Just the same, in the natural order of life, Margaret must marry some time." A pause fell; Smoke caught himself wondering for the thousandth time what Snass's history must be. "I am a harsh, cruel man," Snass went on. "Yet the law is the law, and I am just. Nay, here with this primitive people, I am the law and the justice. Beyond my will no man goes.
And after Snass had warned him twice, he burned his log village, and over a dozen of the Porcupines were killed in the fight. But there was no more cheating. Once, when she was a little girl, there was one white man killed while trying to escape. No, her father did not do it, but he gave the order to the young men. No Indian ever disobeyed her father.
His reasoning was jesuitical beyond dispute, and yet he was not Spartan enough to strike this child-woman a quivering heart-stroke. Snass, too, was a perturbing factor in the problem. Little escaped his black eyes, and he spoke significantly. "No man cares to see his daughter married," he said to Smoke. "At least, no man of imagination. It hurts. The thought of it hurts, I tell you.
"But you can't run," Smoke contradicted. "You can keep up with no man. Your backbone is limber as thawed marrow. If I run, I run alone. The world fades, and perhaps I shall never run. Caribou meat is very good, and soon will come summer and the salmon." Said Snass: "Your partner is dead. My hunters did not kill him. They found the body, frozen in the first of the spring storms in the mountains.
Shorty muttered, as Snass pulled on at the head of his outfit. Again Shorty wiped his hands on the wolf-dog, which seemed to like it as it licked off the delectable grease. Later on in the morning Smoke went for a stroll through the camp, busy with its primitive pursuits. A big body of hunters had just returned, and the men were scattering to their various fires.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking