t bound the hair at the back of her neck.

It was one of the lavender dream-days peculiar to the late summer of
the North. Faint wisps of colorful mist clung to the pickets of the
small fences in the Indian burial-place below them. The totems and the
windows of the tiny grave-houses were filmed with it, and through the
dim glass appeared vague glimpses of the kettles, blankets and
provision inside the houses of the dead--material comforts which the
Thlinget Indians provide for the departed soul's journey over the
Spirit Trail to the Ghost's Home. On the quiet bay below, the
_Hoonah_, blurred in mist, tugged gently at her anchor. Some hundred
yards to the left smoke from the trading-post rose above the alder
trees.

"This is a dandy place for story-telling, Jean. See!" Little Laurence
Boreland pointed to the dim-limned schooner. "The _Hoonah_ looks like
a ghost-ship out there. Listen! I'll tell you the story Kayak Bill
scared me most to death with last night. Ugh! It's spooky, Jean!"
The boy's eyes were round and his voice had lowered at the remembered
thrills of terror. He tugged at the girl's short skirt, until she sat
down beside him, tucking her slim bare feet beneath her as she prepared
to listen.

A raven, weird epitome of Thlinget myth and legend, croaked
spasmodically from the white branch of a dead spruce behind them. The
damp air had in it the freshness of new-cut hemlock boughs, a wild,
vigorous fragrance that stirs the imagination with strange, illusive
promises of the wilderness.

"And the door of the dead-house slowly opened," Loll ended his tale,
pointing to the graveyard below for local color, "and the door
s-l-o-w-l-y opened and a long, white finger--a _bony_ finger,
beckoned----"

He broke off with a gasp of astonishment and terror, for above the rank
growth of Indian celery in front of the lonely grave-house door, there
was a sudden, unmistakable flutter of white. So thoroughly had the
little fellow lost himself in the weird mysteries of his own creating
that panic took possession of him, and communicated itself to the girl
beside him. They sprang to their feet, and with one accord raced
toward the trading-post.

Near the courtyard their footsteps slackened, and Jean began to recover
herself, reminded of her shoes and stockings left behind on the knoll.
She became suddenly ashamed of her headlong flight, precipitated, as
she now saw, by the first breath of afternoon breeze as it