ring his family ashore for a visit during the
time of the coming Potlatch. This was a festival, he assured the
master of the _Hoonah_, which could not fail to interest Mrs. Boreland
and her younger sister.

Even as the trader planned for the reception of the white women, the
squaws who had borne him children were preparing the body of little
Naleenah for its resting place below the ridge where the grave-houses
and totems of the Thlinget dead huddled among the wild celery bushes.

Quietly that night, just before moon-set she was laid away so that her
funeral might cast no sadness on the coming visitors. On the grave,
the silent women of the household placed the treasures that had been
dear to the heart of the White Chief's favorite: a string of cheap
beads, a scarlet shawl, gaudy painted cup and two dead pigeons,
progenitors of the flock that now cooed and fluttered in and out of the
high wire enclosure back of the store.

A week later on the ridge above the new-made grave of Naleenah, a white
girl stood talking to a small boy by her side. Above the
amber-freckled nose of the youngster wide grey eyes were raised in
eager coaxing to her face. From the crown of his bare head, a lock of
dark red hair trembling with absurd earnestness stood up from the mass
of its fellows.

"Oh, Je-an! _Don't_ put on your shoes and stockings just yet! Let's
have one more story before we go back to the post. P-l-e-a-s-e, Auntie
Jean!"

Jean Wiley dropped to the ground a bundle made of her discarded
footwear. Earlier in the afternoon her nephew's barefoot enjoyment of
the beach sand had enticed her to remove her own shoes and stockings,
and delighting in the feel of the cool earth against her pink soles,
she had not replaced them when they decided to follow the trail to the
ridge. She tossed her head, and even in the sunless afternoon, the
dark mass of hair that tumbled down her back seemed shot through with
glints of copper.

"_I_ wouldn't mind going without them always, Loll," she said, holding
out a slim foot and contemplating the freedom of her five, wriggling,
perfect toes. "But--" the foot took its place beside its stationary
twin, "you see, little man, it isn't done at my age, even in Katleean."
Her long-lashed hazel eyes, full of the dreams of eighteen happy years,
laughed down at the boy, and her slender fingers, that could coax such
tender harmonies from the strings of a violin, busied themselves with
the ribbon tha