his special business to
perform various antics about his totem pole for at least six hours
between sunrise and sunset, chanting all the time most dolorous
supplications to the squat monster who sat, grinning, at the top. It was
"the day of good hunting," and Towaskook and his people worked
themselves into exhaustion by the ardour of their prayers that the game
of the mountains might walk right up to their tepee doors to be killed,
thus necessitating the smallest possible physical exertion in its
capture. That night Towaskook visited David at his camp, a little up the
river, to see what he could get out of the white man. He was monstrously
fat--fat from laziness; and David wondered how he had managed to put in
his hours of labour under the totem pole. David sat in silence, trying
to make out something from their gestures, as his half-breed, Jacques,
and the old chief talked.

Jacques repeated it all to him after Towaskook, sighing deeply, had
risen from his squatting posture, and left them. It was a terrible
journey over those mountains, Towaskook had said. He had been on the
Stikine once. He had split with his tribe, and had started eastward with
many followers, but half of them had died--died because they would not
leave their precious totems behind--and so had been caught in a deep
snow that came early. It was a ten-day journey over the mountains. You
went up above the clouds--many times you had to go above the clouds. He
would never make the journey again. There was one chance--just one. He
had a young bear hunter, Kio, his face was still smooth. He had not won
his spurs, so to speak, and he was anxious to perform a great feat,
especially as he was in love with his medicine man's daughter
Kwak-wa-pisew (the Butterfly). Kio might go, to prove his valour to the
Butterfly. Towaskook had gone for him. Of course, on a mission of this
kind, Kio would accept no pay. That would go to Towaskook. The two
hundred dollars' worth of supplies satisfied him.

A little later Towaskook returned with Kio. He was exceedingly youthful,
slim-built as a weazel, but with a deep-set and treacherous eye. He
listened. He would go. He would go as far as the confluence of the
Pitman and the Stikine, if Towaskook would assure him the Butterfly.
Towaskook, eyeing greedily the supplies which Jacques had laid out
alluringly, nodded an agreement to that. "The next day," Kio said, then,
eager now for the adventure. "The next day they would start."