n, George?" said the blind man.

"It's a long story, Charlie, and black. You should have known it
before we started. I'm a marked man in this coast country. It's
Orloff's work, the renegade. 'Father,' he calls himself. Father to
these devils he rules and robs for himself in the name of the Church.
His hate is bitter, and he'd have my life if these watery-livered
curs didn't dread the sound of my voice. God help him when we meet."

He shook his hairy claws at the hostile circle, then cried to the
chief in the native tongue:--

"Oh, Shaman! We come bleeding and weary. Hunger grips us and our
bones are stiff with frost. The light is gone from my brother's eyes
and we are sick. Open you the door to the Mission House that the
'Minoks' may rest and grow strong."

The Indians clustered before the portal, with its rude cross above,
and stared malignantly, while the chief spoke. At the name of his
enemy the unsightly eyes of George gleamed, and he growled
contemptuously, advancing among them. They scattered at the manner
of his coming, and he struck the padlocked door till it rattled
stiffly. Then spying the cross overhead he lifted up and gripped the
wood. It came away ripping, and with wails of rage and horror at the
sacrilege, they closed about him.

"Here, Cap! Bust her in quick!" He dragged Captain before the
entrance, thrusting the weapon upon him, then ran ferociously among
the people. He snatched them to him, cuffing like a bear and
trampling them into the snow. Those who came into the reach of his
knotty arms crumpled up and twisted under his feet. He whirled into
the group, roaring hoarsely, his angry, grease-blackened face hideous
with rage. The aborigine is not a fighting machine; for him the
side-step and counter have no being. They melted ahead of his
blazing wrath, and he whisked them, fleeing, by their garments, so
that they felt the stamp of his moccasined heels.

Captain dragged the team within, and George following, blocked the
shattered door.

"We're safe as long as we stay in the Church," said he.

"Right of sanctuary, eh? Does it occur to you how we're going to get
out?"

"Never mind, we'll get out somehow," said he, and that night, as
Charlie Captain, late University man and engineer, lay with eyes
swathed in steaming cloths, the whaler spoke operosely and with the
bitterness of great wrong.

"It happened when we rocked the bars of Forty Mile, before ever a
Chechako had