the well-filled pot. For he slew with the shrewdness and
blood-hunger of the fiercest, drew in his belly to famine with the
youngest, and with the stoutest faced the bitter seas and stinging
trail. But because of his many deeds, and in punishment, a warship
carried him away, even to thy country, O Hair-Face and Boston Man; and
the years were many ere he came back, and I was grown to something
more than a boy and something less than a young man. And Ligoun, being
childless in his old age, made much of me, and grown wise, gave me of
his wisdom.

"'It be good to fight, O Palitlum,' said he. Nay, O Hair-Face, for
I was unknown as Palitlum in those days, being called Olo, the
Ever-Hungry. The drink was to come after. 'It be good to fight,' spoke
Ligoun, 'but it be foolish. In the Boston Man Country, as I saw with
mine eyes, they are not given to fighting one with another, and they
be strong. Wherefore, of their strength, they come against us of the
Islands and Passes, and we are as camp smoke and sea mist before them.
Wherefore I say it be good to fight, most good, but it be likewise
foolish.'

"And because of this, though first always of the fighting men,
Ligoun's voice was loudest, ever, for peace. And when he was very old,
being greatest of chiefs and richest of men, he gave a potlatch. Never
was there such a potlatch. Five hundred canoes were lined against the
river bank, and in each canoe there came not less than ten of men and
women. Eight tribes were there; from the first and oldest man to the
last and youngest babe were they there. And then there were men from
far-distant tribes, great travellers and seekers who had heard of the
potlatch of Ligoun. And for the length of seven days they filled their
bellies with his meat and drink. Eight thousand blankets did he give
to them, as I well know, for who but I kept the tally and apportioned
according to degree and rank? And in the end Ligoun was a poor man;
but his name was on all men's lips, and other chiefs gritted their
teeth in envy that he should be so great.

"And so, because there was weight to his words, he counselled peace;
and he journeyed to every potlatch and feast and tribal gathering that
he might counsel peace. And so it came that we journeyed together,
Ligoun and I, to the great feast given by Niblack, who was chief over
the river Indians of the Skoot, which is not far from the Stickeen.
This was in the last days, and Ligoun was very old and very close