or speech."

Thereafter, and for a long time, Howkan read to him the confession, and
Imber remained musing and silent. At the end, he said:

"It be my talk, and true talk, but I am grown old, Howkan, and forgotten
things come back to me which were well for the head man there to know.
First, there was the man who came over the Ice Mountains, with cunning
traps made of iron, who sought the beaver of the Whitefish. Him I slew.
And there were three men seeking gold on the Whitefish long ago. Them
also I slew, and left them to the wolverines. And at the Five Fingers
there was a man with a raft and much meat."

At the moments when Imber paused to remember, Howkan translated and a
clerk reduced to writing. The court-room listened stolidly to each
unadorned little tragedy, till Imber told of a red-haired man whose eyes
were crossed and whom he had killed with a remarkably long shot.

"Hell," said a man in the forefront of the onlookers. He said it
soulfully and sorrowfully. He was red-haired. "Hell," he repeated. "That
was my brother Bill." And at regular intervals throughout the session,
his solemn "Hell" was heard in the court-room; nor did his comrades
check him, nor did the man at the table rap him to order.

Imber's head drooped once more, and his eyes went dull, as though a film
rose up and covered them from the world. And he dreamed as only age can
dream upon the colossal futility of youth.

Later, Howkan roused him again, saying: "Stand up, O Imber. It be
commanded that thou tellest why you did these troubles, and slew these
people, and at the end journeyed here seeking the Law."

Imber rose feebly to his feet and swayed back and forth. He began to
speak in a low and faintly rumbling voice, but Howkan interrupted him.

"This old man, he is damn crazy," he said in English to the
square-browed man. "His talk is foolish and like that of a child."

"We will hear his talk which is like that of a child," said the
square-browed man. "And we will hear it, word for word, as he speaks it.
Do you understand?"

Howkan understood, and Imber's eyes flashed for he had witnessed the
play between his sister's son and the man in authority. And then began
the story, the epic of a bronze patriot which might well itself be
wrought into bronze for the generations unborn. The crowd fell strangely
silent, and the square-browed judge leaned head on hand and pondered his
soul and the soul of his race. Only was heard the deep tones of I