Yash-Noosh, a strong hunter who had it in mind to be the father of the
children of Unga. Other young men had piled their goods there and taken
them away again; and each young man had made a pile greater than the
one before.

'And I laughed to the moon and the stars, and went to my own house
where my wealth was stored. And many trips I made, till my pile was
greater by the fingers of one hand than the pile of Yash-Noosh. There
were fish, dried in the sun and smoked; and forty hides of the hair
seal, and half as many of the fur, and each hide was tied at the mouth
and big bellied with oil; and ten skins of bear which I killed in the
woods when they came out in the spring. And there were beads and
blankets and scarlet cloths, such as I got in trade from the people who
lived to the east, and who got them in trade from the people who lived
still beyond in the east.

'And I looked upon the pile of Yash-Noosh and laughed, for I was head
man in Akatan, and my wealth was greater than the wealth of all my
young men, and my fathers had done deeds, and given laws, and put their
names for all time in the mouths of the people.

'So, when the morning came, I went down to the beach, casting out of
the corner of my eye at the house of the mother of Unga. My offer yet
stood untouched.

'And the women smiled, and said sly things one to the other. I
wondered, for never had such a price been offered; and that night I
added more to the pile, and put beside it a kayak of well-tanned skins
which never yet had swam in the sea. But in the day it was yet there,
open to the laughter of all men. The mother of Unga was crafty, and I
grew angry at the shame in which I stood before my people. So that
night I added till it became a great pile, and I hauled up my oomiak,
which was of the value of twenty kayaks. And in the morning there was
no pile.

'Then made I preparation for the wedding, and the people that lived
even to the east came for the food of the feast and the potlatch token.
Unga was older than I by the age of four suns in the way we reckoned
the years. I was only a stripling; but then I was a chief, and the son
of a chief, and it did not matter.

'But a ship shoved her sails above the floor of the ocean, and grew
larger with the breath of the wind. From her scuppers she ran clear
water, and the men were in haste and worked hard at the pumps. On the
bow stood a mighty man, watching the depth of the water and giving
commands with a v