Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 19, 1924 — page 154: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

or ee Se i PS Ue 624 know their temper. Please! Hurry!” “So,” demanded Dode, the gray-blue eyes glinting like the shining ends of a sailor’s splicing irons. “So! Give ear, little matey. I hain’t ever as yet been run out of no place by nobody. I don’t aim to go stampeding off terrified by no Siwash. Final, Olo I aim to stay anyway a day or two. Here I be.” You must go, Dode! IV. WHEN, toward evening, Ya-ada returned to the cabin, Dode was in the yard splitting wood. He held up a double bitted ax, shook it in playful threat at the witch woman and grinned mockingly. “ Ahoy, Ya-ada, fetch a look at my tomahawk. Any warrior hereabouts wants a pukpuk (fight) leave him cut his hawse and come a rarin’.” Ya-ada regarded the white man for the moment, turned and made her way back to the village. Almost immediately, a score of Indians could have been seen, some armed with rifles, a few with spears, mov- ing toward the woods, disposing themselves about like sentinels. An equal number quietly scattered along the beach. Then an Indian boy came to the cabin and sum- moned Olo. Olo looked from the window to where Dode was still chopping wood, made as if to call to him, but thought better of it. Without a protesting word she slipped quiet- ly from the side door, accompanied the Indian boy back to the village. When Olo returned, darkness had fallen. Dode had lighted the little kerosene lamp, and was seated in the living room. Olo tiptoed into the kitchen. In her hand she grasped the slender haft of a spear the head of which was a bit of elk bone, oil rubbed, polished to a needle like point. “ My Tyee,” she whispered to herself. “ My Tyee will be unafraid.” The spear in her hand, she entered the room where Dode was seated. For a long time she stood regarding him. The grin with which he had welcomed her faded to an unwonted expression of seriousness as he noted her troubled countenance. “ Dode,” she said, stepping a pace near- ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, er,” strange customs, beliefs these Cape In- dians have. J understand them. I have lived here always. Why I never had a white girl playmate, never a white friend even—until you came. Dode, you have been a killer of whales. For that, the In- dians hate you, perhaps not for that alone, but it is at least an excuse. To the Flattery Indians, the blue whale is tomanawous, sa- cred. But though sacred, once a year the Indians slay a blue whale. It is a sacrifice, they claim, a gift from-the Saghalie Tyee, God. Every year, one person js selected to slay the big blue whale. He puts out alone, in the darkness of very early morning, in a skin canoe with collapsible frame; his only weapon this, the elk bone spear. It is a heroic feat, Dode, the slaying thus of a seventy-five ton whale. I myself have seen the battle waged for hours, a fight that be- gan at earliest light, lasted until high noon. I have seen the big blue crash in the sides of the frail canoe with a sweep of a fluke. I have seen the chosen Indian, in the water, readjust the frame of the canoe, careen it back and forth, spill out the greater portion of the water, clamber in and renew the hunt. It is a heroic deed, Dode, to slay a whale thus, with this slender elk bone spear.” A moment she paused, then continued. “No wonder, Dode, when one thinks of the peril, that the Indians have the further belief that they have. It is this, Dode, that if any unworthy person offers, or is selected to slay the whale, if that person has one single sin in his heart, why, the big blue whale will kill him. And I have seen this, too, come to pass, Dode. There was Kinootl, the bear hunter. He offered him- self, The big blue whale crushed him with a single blow as a hungry seal will smash a sea urchin with its flipper. Even while Kinootl’s broken body lay on the beach where it had drifted in, it became known that Kinootl had stolen the love of the wife of Georg Kwates, a hunter of beaver. “ And Kwinnum Ikt, he also died in the hunt, Kwinnum, it transpired, was a thief, had stolen fishing gear from old Toltoem.” “Tt is the belief, my big man, that no unworthy hand can cast the elk bone spear. Further it is the belief, and I believe it, that . 9A Comicbooks (<() - a. ~~ 2 oe “ ee ee ade es ery ae _