then will you
have six guns each. Therefore, fight well."

"And if there be none of them left?" Aab-Waak whispered slyly.

"Then will _we_ have the guns, you and I," Tyee whispered back.

However, to propitiate the Hungry Folk, he made one of them leader
of the ship expedition. This party comprised fully two-thirds of the
tribesmen, and departed for the coast, a dozen miles away, laden with
skins and things to trade. The remaining men were disposed in a large
half-circle about the breastwork which Bill-Man and his Sunlanders had
begun to throw up. Tyee was quick to note the virtues of things, and
at once set his men to digging shallow trenches.

"The time will go before they are aware," he explained to Aab-Waak;
"and their minds being busy, they will not think overmuch of the dead
that are, nor gather trouble to themselves. And in the dark of night
they may creep closer, so that when the Sunlanders look forth in the
morning light they will find us very near."

In the midday heat the men ceased from their work and made a meal of
dried fish and seal oil which the women brought up. There was some
clamor for the food of the Sunlanders in the igloo of Neegah, but Tyee
refused to divide it until the return of the ship party. Speculations
upon the outcome became rife, but in the midst of it a dull boom
drifted up over the land from the sea. The keen-eyed ones made out
a dense cloud of smoke, which quickly disappeared, and which they
averred was directly over the ship of the Sunlanders. Tyee was of the
opinion that it was a big gun. Aab-Waak did not know, but thought it
might be a signal of some sort. Anyway, he said, it was time something
happened.

Five or six hours afterward a solitary man was descried coming across
the wide flat from the sea, and the women and children poured out upon
him in a body. It was Ounenk, naked, winded, and wounded. The blood
still trickled down his face from a gash on the forehead. His left
arm, frightfully mangled, hung helpless at his side. But most
significant of all, there was a wild gleam in his eyes which betokened
the women knew not what.

"Where be Peshack?" an old squaw queried sharply.

"And Olitlie?" "And Polak?" "And Mah-Kook?" the voices took up the
cry.

But he said nothing, brushing his way through the clamorous mass and
directing his staggering steps toward Tyee. The old squaw raised the
wail, and one by one the women joined her as they swung in behind. The
men crawled