"May I inquire where the
lady is this morning?"

Between groans the injured husband profanely unburdened himself:

"She go down de tarn Injune house vit dat tarn Injune hunter,
Hoots-noo!"

"Trouble with you, Silver, you're too good to women. Now, instead of
using the iron hand on them you show the yellow streak----"

"Me--jallow streak?" The indignant Swede raised his battered head to
glare into the eyes of his satiric physician. "Vy, tammit, Chief, ven
ay ban cook on _Soofie Suderlant_ ay----"

"That reminds me, Silvertip," interrupted the White Chief. "You
remember telling me about stopping for water on the Island of Kon Klayu
when you were whaling? Yes? . . . Well, while you are lying here
sobering up, I want you to think about that island, Silver. I want you
to remember every little thing about it that you can, and after the
Potlatch I'll be in to talk to you--perhaps. I'll go and hunt up
Harlan now. Damned fool! He raised hell last night--something started
him off. No doubt he's down around the Point swimming it off now.
Queer how that fellow loves water--on the outside of his skin."

The trader left the cabin and started across the courtyard. It had
gradually filled up with multi-colored, grotesque figures that might
have stepped from the pages of some weird, fantastic fairy-tale. The
never-ceasing beat of the Potlatch drums made a throbbing, low
accompaniment to their guttural tones and laughter. They stalked about
wrapped in heavy broadcloth blankets adorned with designs and borders
made of white pearl buttons--thousands of buttons--a style which had
come in when the white traders came to Alaska. Many wore the native
Chilcat blanket of ceremony made of the hair of the mountain goat.
These were marvels of savage embroidery done in conventionalized
designs that might have startled a Cubist painter had they not been
woven with the softest-toned native dyes--yellow, pale-blue and green
and rust. Huge, fierce detached eyes, the Thlinget symbol of
intelligence glared from some. Mouths with queer, squared lips and
large teeth grinned from others. A school of killer-whales with dorsal
fins aloft, disported themselves in rectangles of black on the back of
another. From the bottom a two-foot fog-colored fringe dangled about
the wearer's legs.

Above the fantastic robes black eyes looked out from painted faces
rendered fearsome by red and blue and green designs representing
mythical gods of t