And sometimes the young
men came back with strange tales of dangers and toils in the lands
beyond the Pellys, and sometimes they did not come back. And we said:
'If they be unafraid of life, these white men, it is because they have
many lives; but we be few by the Whitefish, and the young men shall go
away no more.' But the young men did go away; and the young women went
also; and we were very wroth.

"It be true, we ate flour, and salt pork, and drank tea which was a
great delight; only, when we could not get tea, it was very bad and we
became short of speech and quick of anger. So we grew to hunger for the
things the white men brought in trade. Trade! trade! all the time was it
trade! One winter we sold our meat for clocks that would not go, and
watches with broken guts, and files worn smooth, and pistols without
cartridges and worthless. And then came famine, and we were without
meat, and two-score died ere the break of spring.

"'Now are we grown weak,' we said; 'and the Pellys will fall upon us,
and our bounds be overthrown.' But as it fared with us, so had it fared
with the Pellys, and they were too weak to come against us.

"My father, Otsbaok, a strong man, was now old and very wise. And he
spoke to the chief, saying: 'Behold, our dogs be worthless. No longer
are they thick-furred and strong, and they die in the frost and harness.
Let us go into the village and kill them, saving only the wolf ones, and
these let us tie out in the night that they may mate with the wild
wolves of the forest. Thus shall we have dogs warm and strong again.'

"And his word was harkened to, and we Whitefish became known for our
dogs, which were the best in the land. But known we were not for
ourselves. The best of our young men and women had gone away with the
white men to wander on trail and river to far places. And the young
women came back old and broken, as Noda had come, or they came not at
all. And the young men came back to sit by our fires for a time, full
of ill speech and rough ways, drinking evil drinks and gambling through
long nights and days, with a great unrest always in their hearts, till
the call of the white men came to them and they went away again to the
unknown places. And they were without honor and respect, jeering the
old-time customs and laughing in the faces of chief and shamans.

"As I say, we were become a weak breed, we Whitefish. We sold our warm
skins and furs for tobacco and whiskey and thin cotton