way, looking at the memory-pictures of his own life as if they
were pictures in a book of anybody's life. The chief's voice, abruptly
breaking the silence, startled him

"It shall be done," said Makamuk. "The girl shall go down the river with
you. But be it understood that I myself strike the three blows with the
axe on your neck."

"But each time I shall put on the medicine," Subienkow answered, with a
show of ill-concealed anxiety.

"You shall put the medicine on between each blow. Here are the hunters
who shall see you do not escape. Go into the forest and gather your
medicine."

Makamuk had been convinced of the worth of the medicine by the Pole's
rapacity. Surely nothing less than the greatest of medicines could
enable a man in the shadow of death to stand up and drive an old-woman's
bargain.

"Besides," whispered Yakaga, when the Pole, with his guard, had
disappeared among the spruce trees, "when you have learned the medicine
you can easily destroy him."

"But how can I destroy him?" Makamuk argued. "His medicine will not let
me destroy him."

"There will be some part where he has not rubbed the medicine," was
Yakaga's reply. "We will destroy him through that part. It may be his
ears. Very well; we will thrust a spear in one ear and out the other. Or
it may be his eyes. Surely the medicine will be much too strong to rub
on his eyes."

The chief nodded. "You are wise, Yakaga. If he possesses no other devil-
things, we will then destroy him."

Subienkow did not waste time in gathering the ingredients for his
medicine, he selected whatsoever came to hand such as spruce needles, the
inner bark of the willow, a strip of birch bark, and a quantity of moss-
berries, which he made the hunters dig up for him from beneath the snow.
A few frozen roots completed his supply, and he led the way back to camp.

Makamuk and Yakaga crouched beside him, noting the quantities and kinds
of the ingredients he dropped into the pot of boiling water.

"You must be careful that the moss-berries go in first," he explained.

"And--oh, yes, one other thing--the finger of a man. Here, Yakaga, let
me cut off your finger."

But Yakaga put his hands behind him and scowled.

"Just a small finger," Subienkow pleaded.

"Yakaga, give him your finger," Makamuk commanded.

"There be plenty of fingers lying around," Yakaga grunted, indicating the
human wreckage in the snow of the score of persons who had been tortured