The Project Gutenberg EBook of In the Time That Was, by James Frederic Thorne

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Title: In the Time That Was

Author: James Frederic Thorne

Illustrator: Judson T. Sergeant

Release Date: May 16, 2008 [EBook #25483]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE TIME THAT WAS ***

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In
The
Time
That
Was

Dedicated
to
_Ah-Koo_

Done into English
by
J. Frederic Thorne
(_Kitchakahaech_)

Illustrated
by
Judson T. Sergeant
(_To-u-sucka_)

Seattle,
Washington,
U. S. A.

BEING THE FIRST
volume _of_ a series
of Legends _of_ the tribe
of Alaskan Indians
known as the Chilkats--_of_
the Klingats
_As told by Zachook the "Bear"
to Kitchakahaech the "Raven"_

[Illustration]

_In the Time That Was_

"And There Was Light."

Zachook of the Chilkats told me these tales of The Time That Was.
But before the telling, he of the Northland and I of the Southland
had travelled many a mile with dog-team, snowshoes, and canoe.

If the stories suffer in the telling, as suffer they must afar from
that wondrous Alaskan background of mountain and forest, glacier
and river, wrenched from the setting of campfires and trail, and
divorced from the soft gutturals and halting throat notes in which
they have been handed down from generation to generation of Chilkat
and Chilkoot, blame not Zachook, who told them to me, and forbear
to blame me who tell them to you as best I may in this stiff
English tongue. They were many months in the telling and many weary
miles have I had to carry them in my memory pack.

* * * * *

I had lost count of the hours, lost count of the days that at best
are marked by little change between darkness and dawn in the
Northland winter, until I knew not how long I had lain there in my
blanket of snow, waiting for the lingering feet of that dawdler,
Death, to put an end to my sufferings