The Magnetic North Part 21

"Who's makin' this speech?"

"Order!"

"Order!"

"Well, see here: _do_ you admit it, Mac? Don't you see there were just a few enterprisin' ones who cleared out, or, maybe, got carried away in a current, and found better countries and got rich and civilised, and became our forefathers? Hey, boys, ain't I right?"

"You sit down."

"You'll get chucked out."

"Buffon--"

Everybody was talking at once.

"Why, it goes on still," the Boy roared above the din. "People who stick at home, and are patient, and put up with things, they're doomed.

But look at the fellas that come out o' starvin' attics and stinkin'

pigsties to America. They live like lords, and they look at life like men."

Mac was saying a great deal about the Ice Age and the first and second periods of glaciation, but n.o.body could hear what.

_"Prince_ Nicholas? Well, I should smile. He belongs to the oldest family in the world. Hoop-la!" The Boy jumped up on his stool and cracked his head against the roof; but he only ducked, rubbed his wild, long hair till it stood out wilder than ever, and went on: "Nicholas's forefathers were kings before Caesar; they were here before the Pyramids--"

The Colonel came round and hauled the Boy down. Potts was egging the miscreant on. O'Flynn, poorly disguising his delight in a scrimmage, had been shouting: "Ye'll spoil the Blow-Out, ye meddlin' jacka.s.s!

Can't ye let Mac make his s.p.a.che? No; ye must ahlways be huntin' round fur harrum to be doin' or throuble to make."

In the turmoil and the contending of many voices Nicholas began to explain to his friends that it wasn't a real fight, as it had every appearance of being, and the visitors were in no immediate danger of their lives. But Kaviak feared the worst, and began to weep forlornly.

"The world is dyin' at top and bottom!" screamed the Boy, writhing under the Colonel's clutch. "The ice will spread, the beasts will turn white, and we'll turn yella, and we'll all dress in skins and eat fat and be exactly like Kaviak, and the last man'll be found tryin' to warm his hands at the Equator, his feet on an iceberg and his nose in a snowstorm. Your old Buffer's got a long head, Mac. Here's to Buffer!"

Whereupon he subsided and drank freely of punch.

"Well," said the Colonel, severely, "you've had a Blow-Out if n.o.body else has!"

"Feel better?" inquired Potts, tenderly.

"Now, Mac, you shall have a fair field," said the Colonel, "and if the Boy opens his trap again--"

"I'll punch 'im," promised O'Flynn, replenis.h.i.+ng the disturber's cup.

But Mac wouldn't be drawn. Besides, he was feeding Kaviak. So the Colonel filled in the breach with "My old Kentucky Home," which he sang with much feeling, if not great art.

This performance restored harmony and a gentle reflectiveness.

Father Wills told about his journey up here ten years before and of a further expedition he'd once made far north to the Koyukuk.

"But Nicholas knows more about the native life and legends than anyone I ever met, except, of course, Yagorsha."

"Who's Yag----?" began the Boy.

"Oh, that's the Village Story-teller." He was about to speak of something else, but, lifting his eyes, he caught Mac's sudden glance of grudging attention. The priest looked away, and went on: "There's a story-teller in every settlement. He has always been a great figure in the native life, I believe, but now more than ever."

"Why's that?"

"Oh, battles are over and blood-feuds are done, but the need for a story-teller abides. In most villages he is a bigger man than the chief--they're all 'ol' chiefs,' the few that are left--and when they die there will be no more. So the tribal story-teller comes to be the most important character"--the Jesuit smiled in that shrewd and gentle way of his--"that is, of course, after the Shaman, as the Russians call him, the medicine-man, who is a teller of stories, too, in his more circ.u.mscribed fas.h.i.+on. But it's the Story-teller who helps his people through the long winter--helps them to face the terrible new enemies, epidemic disease and famine. He has always been their best defence against that age-old dread they all have of the dark. Yes, no one better able to send such foes flying than Yagorsha of Pymeut. Still, Nicholas is a good second." The Prince of Pymeut shook his head.

"Tell them 'The White Crow's Last Flight,'" urged the priest.

But Nicholas was not in the vein, and when they all urged him overmuch, he, in self-defence, pulled a knife out of his pocket and a bit of walrus ivory about the size of his thumb, and fell to carving.

"What you makin'?"

"b.u.t.ton," says Nicholas; "me heap hurry get him done."

"It looks more like a bird than a b.u.t.ton," remarked the Boy.

"Him bird--him b.u.t.ton," replied the imperturbable one.

"Half the folk-lore of the North has to do with the crow (or raven),"

the priest went on. "Seeing Kaviak's feather reminded me of a native cradle-song that's a kind of a story, too. It's been roughly translated."

"Can you say it?"

"I used to know how it went."

He began in a deep voice:

"'The wind blows over the Yukon.

My husband hunts deer on the Koyukun mountains.

Ahmi, ahmi, sleep, little one.

There is no wood for the fire, The stone-axe is broken, my husband carries the other.

Where is the soul of the sun? Hid in the dam of the beaver, waiting the spring-time.

Ahmi, ahmi, sleep little one, wake not!

Look not for ukali, old woman.

Long since the cache was emptied, the crow lights no more on the ridge pole.

Long since, my husband departed. Why does he wait in the mountains?

Ahmi, ahmi, sleep little one, softly.

Where, where, where is my own?

Does he lie starving on the hillside? Why does he linger?

Comes he not soon I must seek him among the mountains.

Ahmi, ahmi, little one, sleep sound.

Hus.h.!.+ hus.h.!.+ hus.h.!.+ The crow cometh laughing.

Red is his beak, his eyes glisten, the false one!

"Thanks for a good meal to Kuskokala the Shaman-- On the far mountain quietly lieth your husband."

Ahmi, ahmi, sleep little one, wake not.