the mission folk and been taught by them to read
and write. In his hands he held the many fine sheets from which the man
had read aloud and which had been taken down by a clerk when Imber first
made confession, through the mouth of Jimmy, to Captain Alexander.
Howkan began to read. Imber listened for a space, when a wonderment rose
up in his face and he broke in abruptly.

"That be my talk, Howkan. Yet from thy lips it comes when thy ears have
not heard."

Howkan smirked with self-appreciation. His hair was parted in the
middle. "Nay, from the paper it comes, O Imber. Never have my ears
heard. From the paper it comes, through my eyes, into my head, and out
of my mouth to thee. Thus it comes."

"Thus it comes? It be there in the paper?" Imber's voice sank in
whisperful awe as he crackled the sheets 'twixt thumb and finger and
stared at the charactery scrawled thereon. "It be a great medicine,
Howkan, and thou art a worker of wonders."

"It be nothing, it be nothing," the young man responded carelessly and
pridefully. He read at hazard from the document: "_In that year, before
the break of the ice, came an old man, and a boy who was lame of one
foot. These also did I kill, and the old man made much noise_----"

"It be true," Imber interrupted breathlessly, "He made much noise and
would not die for a long time. But how dost thou know, Howkan? The chief
man of the white men told thee, mayhap? No one beheld me, and him alone
have I told."

Howkan shook his head with impatience. "Have I not told thee it be there
in the paper, O fool?"

Imber stared hard at the ink-scrawled surface. "As the hunter looks upon
the snow and says, Here but yesterday there passed a rabbit; and here by
the willow scrub it stood and listened, and heard, and was afraid; and
here it turned upon its trail; and here it went with great swiftness,
leaping wide; and here, with greater swiftness and wider leapings, came
a lynx; and here, where the claws cut deep into the snow, the lynx made
a very great leap; and here it struck, with the rabbit under and rolling
belly up; and here leads off the trail of the lynx alone, and there is
no more rabbit,--as the hunter looks upon the markings of the snow and
says thus and so and here, dost thou, too, look upon the paper and say
thus and so and here be the things old Imber hath done?"

"Even so," said Howkan. "And now do thou listen, and keep thy woman's
tongue between thy teeth till thou art called upon f