advantage he sang a halting Thlinget song and
scattered the down of eagles about him. In the middle of the room he
whirled and Ellen recognized Swimming Wolf.

"If the feathers fall on you," said the White Chief leaning toward her,
"you'll have good luck all the year."

Other dancers backed in and took their places about the drummers. As
Swimming Wolf stepped forward the drum-beats died to a muffled
softness. The dancing sticks beat the floor in a low, sensuous
syncopation that stirred the blood. The long-fringed blanket lent a
wild grace to the Indian's swaying, stamping figure. His crouched
steps seemed part of his faint, humming chant.

Curious at first, and a little apprehensive, Ellen looked on, her hand
clasping that of her husband. After a while, the steady pulsing of the
drums banished that something faintly like foreboding with which the
civilized woman looks for the first time on primitive ceremonies; it
even stirred in her something that she seemed once to have known and
forgotten.

By the time Swimming Wolf had finished his steps she had withdrawn her
hand from that of Shane and was anticipating with eager interest what
was coming next.

She had not long to wait for the oval door swung on its peg and into
the room lumbered a huge brown bear so true to life in form and gait
that both she and Jean gave a startled gasp. The White Chief smiled as
he leaned toward them.

"It's only Hoots-noo, Heart-of-a-Grizzly, dressed in a bear hide!"

The Indian must have spent many hours studying the actions and habits
of his ferocious namesake, for in the pantomime that followed he gave a
perfect imitation of the great bear of the North. Shambling down
toward the center of the floor he paused. Striking a pose he made a
motion as if jumping into a river to catch a salmon. With a
floundering of his ungainly body he brought the fish up on the bank of
the stream. He turned his uplifted muzzle from side to side as if
scenting danger and presently proceeded to tear the fish into pieces,
his head continually moving as though looking and listening for the
hunter's rifle.

Hoots-noo's performance was followed by other clever impersonations and
by more solo dances of blanketed Indians. All the dances, the White
Chief told Ellen, were taken from the movements of the wild things of
the North--the slinking of the fox across the tundra, the leaping of
the King salmon in the river, the flight of the eagle over the fi