Kayak Bill spat meditatively at a knot of brown kelp.

"Wall, we _mout_ be a-makin' a false play, but--durn the critter
anyway, Shane! He ain't got no more backbone than a wet string! He's
been in a hell of a stew ever since we got here about this storm
a-brewing and it's beginnin' to roil me just havin' him pesticate
around. Let him go."

During the conversation Silvertip's pale eyes had been shifting back
and forth between Boreland and Kayak. If he resented Kayak's
disparaging remarks he made no sign. When the old man finished he
began moving swiftly toward the whale-boat where his mate was adjusting
the oar-locks.

Five minutes after a last hurried direction relating to the location of
the house, he and his partner were making their way out over the
breakers to the _Hoonah_. Shane and Kayak started out at once to look
for the cabin in which they intended to sleep that night. As they left
they called cheerily to the women standing on the beach, but Ellen
hardly heard them.

As the distance between the shore and the moving whale-boat lengthened
she felt a growing depression, a sinking of the heart. She was filled
with a vast loneliness. All about her and above her was illimitable
distance--ocean spaces green and rolling; sky spaces far and wide and
blue; spaces through which the winds of the world swept unhindered;
spaces filled eternally with the sound of the sea. She was awed and
silenced by the immensity, the impersonality of it all.

Jean, too, was silent and meditative. Ellen wondered if she were
thinking of young Harlan. That problem at least was solved, she
thought with relief. The girl came close and placed an arm about
Ellen's waist as if for the comfort her physical presence might bring.

Together they looked on while the _Hoonah_ got under weigh. Flying
before the wind it grew smaller and smaller in the distance. The awe
in Ellen's heart gradually gave place to an acute homesickness for the
comfort of the little craft that would be her home no more. Time
passed, and as she watched the topmast sail going down on the horizon
she realized, as never before, that the fate of herself and her family
was dependent solely on the White Chief of Katleean. His word was law,
his power absolute. She was aghast at her blindness in permitting the
shaping of such a situation. Blaming herself, she went over the events
of the last two weeks step by step, perceiving too late what she would
have done, w