re, but he had been prepared for
that today. The entire post of Katleean was getting ready for the
Potlatch, an Indian festival scheduled for the near future. For this
occasion Kayak Bill, in his carefully secreted still across the lagoon,
had completed a particularly potent batch of moonshine, known locally
as hootch. The arrival, earlier in the afternoon, of the jocose old
hootch-maker with a canoe-load of his fiery beverage, had been a signal
for a gathering at his cabin across the courtyard. From the sounds
that now floated out on the late afternoon air, he must already have
distributed generous samples of his brew.

The White Chief rose from his chair and reached for another cigarette.
As usual, he tossed it away after one long, deep inhalation. Before
the smoke cleared from his head, he was crossing the store room with
his easy panther tread--the result of former years of moccasin-wearing.

In the open doorway he paused, leaned against the portal and hooked one
thumb beneath his scarlet belt. His narrow eyes swept the scene before
him. Across the bay, between purple hills, a valley lay dreaming in
rose-lavender mist. Blue above the August haze was a glimpse of a
glacier, and farther back, peaks rose tier upon tier in the vague,
amethystine distance.

Suddenly the quiet beauty was shot through with the sound of loud
voices and snatches of song issuing from the cabin of Kayak Bill. The
trader listened with a smile that was half a sneer. He himself never
drank while at the post, deeming that it lessened his influence with
the Indians. But among the secrets of his own experience were memories
of wild days and nights aboard visiting schooners, at the end of which
prone in the captain's bunk, he had lain for hours in alcoholic
oblivion.

The voices from the cabin ceased abruptly. Then like the bellow of a
fog horn on a lonely northern sea came Kayak Bill's deep bass:

"Take me north of old Point Barrow
Where there ain't no East or West;
Where man has a thirst that lingers
And where moonshine tastes the best;
Where the Arctic ice-pack hovers
'Twixt Alaska and the Pole,
And there ain't no bloomin' fashions
To perplex a good man's soul."

There was a momentary pause followed by a hubbub of masculine voices
apparently in a dispute as to how the song should run. High above the
others rose a squeaky Scandinavian protest:

"By yingo, ven ay ban cook on _Soofie Suderlant_ ve sing it so