hale!"

At once the wily Raven rolled down his sleeves and quit work, saying,
"That is a bad sign, for my daughter has told me that if a fire-drill
is found in a whale and people try to cut up that whale, many of them
will die. I shall run away before the _inua_ of the whale catches me."
And away he ran.

When he was gone the people looked at one another and said, "Perhaps
he is right; we'd better go too." And away they all ran, each one
trying to rub the oil from his hands as he went.

From his hiding-place Raven looked on and laughed as he saw the people
running away. Then he went back for his raven coat and when he had put
it on and pulled down his beak he flew to the carcass and began to cut
it up and fly with chunks of the flesh to a cave on the shore. He did
not dare go to it as a man lest the villagers should see him and,
discovering the trick he had played them, should come back for the
meat. As he chuckled over the feast in store for him he said, "Thanks,
Ghost of the whale, both for the boat ride and for the feast."

XXVII

THE RED SKELETON

In a village on Cape Prince of Wales, very long ago, there was a poor
orphan boy who had no one to take his part and who was treated badly
by everyone, being made to run here and there at the bidding of all
the villagers.

One snowy night he was told to go out of the kashim to see if the
weather was getting worse. He had no skin boots, and it was so cold
that he did not wish to go, but he was driven out. When he came back
he said, "It has stopped snowing, but it is as cold as ever."

Just to plague him, the men kept sending him out every little while,
until at last he came in saying:

"I saw a ball of fire like the moon coming over the hill to the
north."

The men laughed at him and asked, "Why do you tell us a yarn like
that? Go out again and see if there is not a whale coming over the
hill. You are always seeing things."

He went out, and came in again quickly, saying in agitation, "The red
thing has come nearer and is close to the house."

The men laughed, but the boy hid himself. Almost immediately after
this the men in the kashim saw a fiery figure dancing on the gut-skin
covering over the roof hole, and an instant after a human skeleton
came crawling into the room through the passageway, creeping on its
knees and elbows.

When the skeleton was in the room it made a motion toward the people
which caused them all to fall on their knees and elb