ithout.

But her next move disarmed his doubt, and he smiled with pleasure. She
took from her sewing bag a moosehide sheath, brave with bright
beadwork, fantastically designed. She drew his great hunting-knife,
gazed reverently along the keen edge, half tempted to try it with her
thumb, and shot it into place in its new home. Then she slipped the
sheath along the belt to its customary resting-place, just above the
hip. For all the world, it was like a scene of olden time,--a lady and
her knight.

Mackenzie drew her up full height and swept her red lips with his
moustache, the, to her, foreign caress of the Wolf. It was a meeting of
the stone age and the steel; but she was none the less a woman, as her
crimson cheeks and the luminous softness of her eyes attested.

There was a thrill of excitement in the air as 'Scruff' Mackenzie, a
bulky bundle under his arm, threw open the flap of Thling-Tinneh's
tent. Children were running about in the open, dragging dry wood to the
scene of the potlach, a babble of women's voices was growing in
intensity, the young men were consulting in sullen groups, while from
the Shaman's lodge rose the eerie sounds of an incantation.

The chief was alone with his blear-eyed wife, but a glance sufficed to
tell Mackenzie that the news was already told. So he plunged at once
into the business, shifting the beaded sheath prominently to the fore
as advertisement of the betrothal.

'O Thling-Tinneh, mighty chief of the Sticks And the land of the
Tanana, ruler of the salmon and the bear, the moose and the cariboo!
The White Man is before thee with a great purpose. Many moons has his
lodge been empty, and he is lonely. And his heart has eaten itself in
silence, and grown hungry for a woman to sit beside him in his lodge,
to meet him from the hunt with warm fire and good food. He has heard
strange things, the patter of baby moccasins and the sound of
children's voices. And one night a vision came upon him, and he beheld
the Raven, who is thy father, the great Raven, who is the father of all
the Sticks. And the Raven spake to the lonely White Man, saying: "Bind
thou thy moccasins upon thee, and gird thy snow-shoes on, and lash thy
sled with food for many sleeps and fine tokens for the Chief
Thling-Tinneh. For thou shalt turn thy face to where the mid-spring sun
is wont to sink below the land and journey to this great chief's
hunting-grounds. There thou shalt make big presents, and Thling-Tinneh,
wh