THE LEAGUE OF THE OLD MEN
BY
JACK LONDON
_Copyright_, 1902, by the Macmillan Company Reprinted from CHILDREN OFTHE FROST by permission
AT THE Barracks a man was being tried for his life. He was an old man, anative from the Whitefish River, which empties into the Yukon below LakeLe Barge. All Dawson was wrought up over the affair, and likewise theYukon-dwellers for a thousand miles up and down. It has been the customof the land-robbing and sea-robbing Anglo-Saxon to give the law toconquered peoples, and ofttimes this law is harsh. But in the case ofImber the law for once seemed inadequate and weak. In the mathematicalnature of things, equity did not reside in the punishment to be accordedhim. The punishment was a foregone conclusion, there could be no doubtof that; and though it was capital, Imber had but one life, while thetale against him was one of scores.
In fact, the blood of so many was upon his hands that the killingsattributed to him did not permit of precise enumeration. Smoking a pipeby the trail-side or lounging around the stove, men made rough estimatesof the numbers that had perished at his hand. They had been whites, allof them, these poor murdered people, and they had been slain singly, inpairs, and in parties. And so purposeless and wanton had been thesekillings, that they had long been a mystery to the mounted police, evenin the time of the captains, and later, when the creeks realized, and agovernor came from the Dominion to make the land pay for its prosperity.
But more mysterious still was the coming of Imber to Dawson to givehimself up. It was in the late spring, when the Yukon was growling andwrithing under its ice, that the old Indian climbed painfully up thebank from the river trail and stood blinking on the main street. Men whohad witnessed his advent, noted that he was weak and tottery, and thathe staggered over to a heap of cabin-logs and sat down. He sat there afull day, staring straight before him at the unceasing tide of white menthat flooded past. Many a head jerked curiously to the side to meet hisstare, and more than one remark was dropped anent the old Siwash with sostrange a look upon his face. No end of men remembered afterward thatthey had been struck by his extraordinary figure, and forever afterwardprided themselves upon their swift discernment of the unusual.
But it remained for Dickensen, Little Dickensen, to be the hero of theoccasion. Little Dickensen had come into the land with great dreams anda pocketful of cash; but with the cash the dreams vanished, and to earnhis passage back to the States he had accepted a clerical position withthe brokerage firm of Holbrook and Mason. Across the street from theoffice of Holbrook and Mason was the heap of cabin-logs upon which Imbersat. Dickensen looked out of the window at him before he went to lunch;and when he came back from lunch he looked out of the window, and theold Siwash was still there.
Dickensen continued to look out of the window, and he, too, foreverafterward prided himself upon his swiftness of discernment. He was aromantic little chap, and he likened the immobile old heathen the geniusof the Siwash race, gazing calm-eyed upon the hosts of the invadingSaxon. The hours swept along, but Imber did not vary his posture, didnot by a hair's-breadth move a muscle; and Dickensen remembered the manwho once sat upright on a sled in the main street where men passed toand fro. They thought the man was resting, but later, when they touchedhim, they found him stiff and cold, frozen to death in the midst of thebusy street. To undouble him, that he might fit into a coffin, they hadbeen forced to lug him to a fire and thaw him out a bit. Dickensenshivered at the recollection.
Later on, Dickensen went out on the sidewalk to smoke a cigar and cooloff; and a little later Emily Travis happened along. Emily Travis wasdainty and delicate and rare, and whether in London or Klondike, shegowned herself as befitted the daughter of a millionaire miningengineer. Little Dickensen deposited his cigar on an outside windowledge where he could find it again, and lifted his hat.
They chatted for ten minutes or so, when Emily Travis, glancing pastDickensen's shoulder, gave a startled little scream. Dickensen turnedabout to see, and was startled, too. Imber had crossed the street andwas standing there, a gaunt and hungry-looking shadow, his gaze rivetedupon the girl.
"What do you want?" Little Dickensen demanded, tremulously plucky.
Imber grunted and stalked up to Emily Travis. He looked her over, keenlyand carefully, every square inch of her. Especially did he appearinterested in her silky brown hair, and in the color of her cheek,faintly sprayed and soft, like the downy bloom of a butterfly wing. Hewalked around her, surveying her with the calculating eye of a man whostudies the lines upon which a horse or a boat is builded. In the courseof his circuit the pink shell of her ear came between his eye and thewestering sun, and he stopped to contemplate its rosy transparency. Thenhe returned to her face and looked long and intently into her blue eyes.He grunted and laid a hand on her arm midway between the shoulder andelbow. With his other hand he lifted her forearm and doubled it back.Disgust and wonder showed in his face, and he dropped her arm with acontemptuous grunt. Then he muttered a few guttural syllables, turnedhis back upon her, and addressed himself to Dickensen.
Dickensen could not understand his speech, and Emily Travis laughed.Imber turned from one to the other, frowning, but both shook theirheads. He was about to go away, when she called out:
"Oh, Jimmy! Come here!"
Jimmy came from the other side of the street. He was a big, hulkingIndian clad in approved white-man style, with an Eldorado king'ssombrero on his head. He talked with Imber, haltingly, with throatyspasms. Jimmy was a Sitkan, possessed of no more than a passingknowledge of the interior dialects.
"Him Whitefish man," he said to Emily Travis. "Me savve um talk no verymuch. Him want to look see chief white man."
"The Governor," suggested Dickensen.
Jimmy talked some more with the Whitefish man, and his face went graveand puzzled.
"I t'ink um want Cap'n Alexander," he explained. "Him say um kill whiteman, white woman, white boy, plenty kill um white people. Him want todie."
"'Insane, I guess," said Dickensen.
"What you call dat?" queried Jimmy.
Dickensen thrust a finger figuratively inside his head and imparted arotary motion thereto.
"Mebbe so, mebbe so," said Jimmy, returning to Imber, who still demandedthe chief man of the white men.
A mounted policeman (unmounted for Klondike service) joined the groupand heard Imber's wish repeated. He was a stalwart young fellow,broad-shouldered, deep-chested, legs cleanly built and stretched wideapart, and tall though Imber was, he towered above him by half a head.His eyes were cool, and gray, and steady, and he carried himself withthe peculiar confidence of power that is bred of blood and tradition.His splendid masculinity was emphasized by his excessive boyishness,--hewas a mere lad,--and his smooth cheek promised a blush as willingly asthe cheek of a maid.
Imber was drawn to him at once. The fire leaped into his eyes at sightof a sabre slash that scarred his cheek. He ran a withered hand down theyoung fellow's leg and caressed the swelling thew. He smote the broadchest with his knuckles, and pressed and prodded the thick muscle-padsthat covered the shoulders like a cuirass. The group had been added toby curious passers-by--husky miners, mountaineers, and frontiersmen,sons of the long-legged and broad-shouldered generations. Imber glancedfrom one to another, then he spoke aloud in the Whitefish tongue.
"What did he say?" asked Dickensen.
"Him say um all the same one man, dat p'liceman," Jimmy interpreted.
Little Dickensen was little, and what of Miss Travis, he felt sorry forhaving asked the question.
The policeman was sorry for him and stepped into the breach. "I fancythere may be something in his story. I'll take him up to the captain forexamination. Tell him to come along with me, Jimmy."
Jimmy indulged in more throaty spasms, and Imber grunted and lookedsatisfied.
"But ask him what he said, Jimmy, and what he meant when he took hold ofmy arm."
So spoke Emily Travis, and Jimmy put the question and received theanswer.
"Him
say you no afraid," said Jimmy.
Emily Travis looked pleased.
"Him say you no _skookum_, no strong, all the same very soft like littlebaby. Him break you, in um two hands, to little pieces. Him t'ink muchfunny, very strange, how you can be mother of men so big, so strong,like dat p'liceman."
Emily Travers kept her eyes up and unfaltering, but her cheeks weresprayed with scarlet. Little Dickensen blushed and was quiteembarrassed. The policeman's face blazed with his boy's blood.
"Come along, you," he said gruffly, setting his shoulder to the crowdand forcing a way.
Thus it was that Imber found his way to the Barracks, where he made fulland voluntary confession, and from the precincts of which he neveremerged.
* * * * *
Imber looked very tired. The fatigue of hopelessness and age was in hisface. His shoulders drooped depressingly, and his eyes were lack-luster.His mop of hair should have been white, but sun--and weather-beat hadburned and bitten it so that it hung limp and lifeless and colorless. Hetook no interest in what went on around him. The court-room was jammedwith the men of the creeks and trails, and there was an ominous note inthe rumble and grumble of their low-pitched voices, which came to hisears like the growl of the sea from deep caverns.
He sat close by a window, and his apathetic eyes rested now and again onthe dreary scene without. The sky was overcast, and a gray drizzle wasfalling. It was flood-time on the Yukon. The ice was gone, and the riverwas up in the town. Back and forth on the main street, in canoes andpoling-boats, passed the people that never rested. Often he saw theseboats turn aside from the street and enter the flooded square thatmarked the Barracks' parade-ground. Sometimes they disappeared beneathhim, and he heard them jar against the house-logs and their occupantsscramble in through the window. After that came the slush of wateragainst men's legs as they waded across the lower room and mounted thestairs. Then they appeared in the doorway, with doffed hats anddripping sea-boots, and added themselves to the waiting crowd.
And while they centered their looks on him, and in grim anticipationenjoyed the penalty he was to pay, Imber looked at them, and mused ontheir ways, and on their Law that never slept, but went on unceasing, ingood times and bad, in flood and famine, through trouble and terror anddeath, and which would go on unceasing, it seemed to him, to the end oftime.
A man rapped sharply on a table, and the conversation droned away intosilence. Imber looked at the man. He seemed one in authority, yet Imberdivined the square-browed man who sat by a desk farther back to be theone chief over them all and over the man who had rapped. Another man bythe same table uprose and began to read aloud from many fine sheets ofpaper. At the top of each sheet he cleared his throat, at the bottommoistened his fingers. Imber did not understand his speech, but theothers did, and he knew that it made them angry. Sometimes it made themvery angry, and once a man cursed him, in single syllables, stinging andtense, till a man at the table rapped him to silence.
For an interminable period the man read. His monotonous, sing-songutterance lured Imber to dreaming, and he was dreaming deeply when theman ceased. A voice spoke to him in his own Whitefish tongue, and heroused up, without surprise, to look upon the face of his sister's son,a young man who had wandered away years agone to make his dwelling withthe whites.
"Thou dost not remember me," he said by way of greeting.
"Nay," Imber answered. "Thou art Howkan who went away. Thy mother bedead."
"She was an old woman," said Howkan.
But Imber did not hear, and Howkan, with hand upon his shoulder, rousedhim again.
"I shall speak to thee what the man has spoken, which is the tale of thetroubles thou hast done and which thou hast told, O fool, to the CaptainAlexander. And thou shalt understand and say if it be true talk or talknot true. It is so commanded."
Howkan had fallen among the mission folk and been taught by them to readand write. In his hands he held the many fine sheets from which the manhad read aloud and which had been taken down by a clerk when Imber firstmade confession, through the mouth of Jimmy, to Captain Alexander.Howkan began to read. Imber listened for a space, when a wonderment roseup in his face and he broke in abruptly.
"That be my talk, Howkan. Yet from thy lips it comes when thy ears havenot heard."
Howkan smirked with self-appreciation. His hair was parted in themiddle. "Nay, from the paper it comes, O Imber. Never have my earsheard. From the paper it comes, through my eyes, into my head, and outof my mouth to thee. Thus it comes."
"Thus it comes? It be there in the paper?" Imber's voice sank inwhisperful awe as he crackled the sheets 'twixt thumb and finger andstared at the charactery scrawled thereon. "It be a great medicine,Howkan, and thou art a worker of wonders."
"It be nothing, it be nothing," the young man responded carelessly andpridefully. He read at hazard from the document: "_In that year, beforethe break of the ice, came an old man, and a boy who was lame of onefoot. These also did I kill, and the old man made much noise_----"
"It be true," Imber interrupted breathlessly, "He made much noise andwould not die for a long time. But how dost thou know, Howkan? The chiefman of the white men told thee, mayhap? No one beheld me, and him alonehave I told."
Howkan shook his head with impatience. "Have I not told thee it be therein the paper, O fool?"
Imber stared hard at the ink-scrawled surface. "As the hunter looks uponthe snow and says, Here but yesterday there passed a rabbit; and here bythe willow scrub it stood and listened, and heard, and was afraid; andhere it turned upon its trail; and here it went with great swiftness,leaping wide; and here, with greater swiftness and wider leapings, camea lynx; and here, where the claws cut deep into the snow, the lynx madea very great leap; and here it struck, with the rabbit under and rollingbelly up; and here leads off the trail of the lynx alone, and there isno more rabbit,--as the hunter looks upon the markings of the snow andsays thus and so and here, dost thou, too, look upon the paper and saythus and so and here be the things old Imber hath done?"
"Even so," said Howkan. "And now do thou listen, and keep thy woman'stongue between thy teeth till thou art called upon for speech."
Thereafter, and for a long time, Howkan read to him the confession, andImber remained musing and silent. At the end, he said:
"It be my talk, and true talk, but I am grown old, Howkan, and forgottenthings come back to me which were well for the head man there to know.First, there was the man who came over the Ice Mountains, with cunningtraps made of iron, who sought the beaver of the Whitefish. Him I slew.And there were three men seeking gold on the Whitefish long ago. Themalso I slew, and left them to the wolverines. And at the Five Fingersthere was a man with a raft and much meat."
At the moments when Imber paused to remember, Howkan translated and aclerk reduced to writing. The court-room listened stolidly to eachunadorned little tragedy, till Imber told of a red-haired man whose eyeswere crossed and whom he had killed with a remarkably long shot.
"Hell," said a man in the forefront of the onlookers. He said itsoulfully and sorrowfully. He was red-haired. "Hell," he repeated. "Thatwas my brother Bill." And at regular intervals throughout the session,his solemn "Hell" was heard in the court-room; nor did his comradescheck him, nor did the man at the table rap him to order.
Imber's head drooped once more, and his eyes went dull, as though a filmrose up and covered them from the world. And he dreamed as only age candream upon the colossal futility of youth.
Later, Howkan roused him again, saying: "Stand up, O Imber. It becommanded that thou tellest why you did these troubles, and slew thesepeople, and at the end journeyed here seeking the Law."
Imber rose feebly to his feet and swayed back and forth. He began tospeak in a low and faintly rumbling voice, but Howkan interrupted him.
"This old man, he is damn crazy," he said in English to thesquare-browed man. "His talk is foolish and like that of a child."
"We will hear his talk which is like that of a chi
ld," said thesquare-browed man. "And we will hear it, word for word, as he speaks it.Do you understand?"
Howkan understood, and Imber's eyes flashed for he had witnessed theplay between his sister's son and the man in authority. And then beganthe story, the epic of a bronze patriot which might well itself bewrought into bronze for the generations unborn. The crowd fell strangelysilent, and the square-browed judge leaned head on hand and pondered hissoul and the soul of his race. Only was heard the deep tones of Imber,rhythmically alternating with the shrill voice of the interpreter, andnow and again, like the bell of the Lord, the wondering and meditative"Hell" of the red-haired man.
"I am Imber of the Whitefish people." So ran the interpretation ofHowkan, whose inherent barbarism gripped hold of him, and who lost hismission culture and veneered civilization as he caught the savage ringand rhythm of old Imber's tale. "My father was Otsbaok, a strong man.The land was warm with sunshine and gladness when I was a boy. Thepeople did not hunger after strange things, nor hearken to new voices,and the ways of their fathers were their ways. The women found favor inthe eyes of the young men, and the young men looked upon them withcontent. Babes hung at the breasts of the women, and they wereheavy-hipped with increase of the tribe. Men were men in those days. Inpeace and plenty, and in war and famine, they were men.
"At that time there was more fish in the water than now, and more meatin the forest. Our dogs were wolves, warm with thick hides and hard tothe frost and storm. And as with our dogs, so with us, for we werelikewise hard to the frost and storm. And when the Pellys came into ourland we slew them and were slain. For we were men, we Whitefish, and ourfathers and our fathers' fathers had fought against the Pellys anddetermined the bounds of the land.
"As I say, with our dogs, so with us. And one day came the first whiteman. He dragged himself, so, on hand and knee, in the snow. And his skinwas stretched tight, and his bones were sharp beneath. Never was such aman, we thought, and we wondered of what strange tribe he was, and ofits land. And he was weak, most weak, like a little child, so that wegave him a place by the fire, and warm furs to lie upon, and we gave himfood as little children are given food.
"And with him was a dog, large as three of our dogs, and very weak. Thehair of this dog was short, and not warm, and the tail was frozen sothat the end fell off. And this strange dog we fed, and bedded by thefire, and fought from it our dogs, which else would have killed him. Andwhat of the moose meat and the sun-dried salmon, the man and dog tookstrength to themselves; and what of the strength, they became big andunafraid. And the man spoke loud words and laughed at the old men andyoung men, and looked boldly upon the maidens. And the dog fought withour dogs, and for all of his short hair and softness slew three of themin one day.
"When we asked the man concerning his people he said, 'I have manybrothers,' and laughed in a way that was not good. And when he was inhis full strength he went away, and with him went Noda, daughter to thechief. First, after that, was one of our bitches brought to pup. Andnever was there such a breed of dogs,--big-headed, thick-jawed, andshort-haired, and helpless. Well do I remember my father, Otsbaok, astrong man. His face was black with anger at such helplessness, and hetook a stone, so, and so, and there was no more helplessness. And twosummers after that came Noda back to us with a man-child in the hollowof her arm.
"And that was the beginning. Came a second white man, with short-haireddogs, which he left behind him when he went. And with him went six ofour strongest dogs, for which, in trade, he had given Koo-So-Tee, mymother's brother, a wonderful pistol that fired with great swiftness sixtimes. And Koo-So-Tee was very big, what of the pistol, and laughed atour bows and arrows. 'Woman's things,' he called them, and went forthagainst the bald-face grizzly, with the pistol in his hand. Now it beknown that it is not good to hunt the bald-face with a pistol, but howwere we to know? and how was Koo-So-Tee to know? So he went against thebald-face, very brave, and fired the pistol with great swiftness sixtimes; and the bald-face but grunted and broke in his breast like itwere an egg and like honey from a bee's nest dripped the brains ofKoo-So-Tee upon the ground. He was a good hunter, and there was no oneto bring meat to his squaw and children. And we were bitter, and we said'That which for the white men is well, is for us not well.' And this betrue. There be many white men and fat, but their ways have made us fewand lean.
"Came the third white man, with great wealth of all manner of wonderfulfoods and things. And twenty of our strongest dogs he took from us intrade. Also, what of presents and great promises, ten of our younghunters did he take with him on a journey which fared no man knew where.It is said they died in the snow of the Ice Mountains where man hasnever been, or in the Hills of Silence which are beyond the edge of theearth. Be that as it may, dogs and young hunters were seen never againby the Whitefish people.
"And more white men came with the years, and ever, with pay andpresents, they led the young men away with them. And sometimes the youngmen came back with strange tales of dangers and toils in the landsbeyond the Pellys, and sometimes they did not come back. And we said:'If they be unafraid of life, these white men, it is because they havemany lives; but we be few by the Whitefish, and the young men shall goaway no more.' But the young men did go away; and the young women wentalso; and we were very wroth.
"It be true, we ate flour, and salt pork, and drank tea which was agreat delight; only, when we could not get tea, it was very bad and webecame short of speech and quick of anger. So we grew to hunger for thethings the white men brought in trade. Trade! trade! all the time was ittrade! One winter we sold our meat for clocks that would not go, andwatches with broken guts, and files worn smooth, and pistols withoutcartridges and worthless. And then came famine, and we were withoutmeat, and two-score died ere the break of spring.
"'Now are we grown weak,' we said; 'and the Pellys will fall upon us,and our bounds be overthrown.' But as it fared with us, so had it faredwith the Pellys, and they were too weak to come against us.
"My father, Otsbaok, a strong man, was now old and very wise. And hespoke to the chief, saying: 'Behold, our dogs be worthless. No longerare they thick-furred and strong, and they die in the frost and harness.Let us go into the village and kill them, saving only the wolf ones, andthese let us tie out in the night that they may mate with the wildwolves of the forest. Thus shall we have dogs warm and strong again.'
"And his word was harkened to, and we Whitefish became known for ourdogs, which were the best in the land. But known we were not forourselves. The best of our young men and women had gone away with thewhite men to wander on trail and river to far places. And the youngwomen came back old and broken, as Noda had come, or they came not atall. And the young men came back to sit by our fires for a time, fullof ill speech and rough ways, drinking evil drinks and gambling throughlong nights and days, with a great unrest always in their hearts, tillthe call of the white men came to them and they went away again to theunknown places. And they were without honor and respect, jeering theold-time customs and laughing in the faces of chief and shamans.
"As I say, we were become a weak breed, we Whitefish. We sold our warmskins and furs for tobacco and whiskey and thin cotton things that leftus shivering in the cold. And the coughing sickness came upon us, andmen and women coughed and sweated through the long nights, and thehunters on trail spat blood upon the snow. And now one, and now another,bled swiftly from the mouth and died. And the women bore few children,and those they bore were weak and given to sickness. And othersicknesses came to us from the white men, the like of which we had neverknown and could not understand. Smallpox, likewise measles, have I heardthese sicknesses named, and we died of them as die the salmon in thestill eddies when in the fall their eggs are spawned and there is nolonger need for them to live.
"And yet, and here be the strangeness of it, the white men come as thebreath of death; all their ways lead to death, their nostrils are filledwith it; and yet they do not die. Theirs the whiskey, and tobacco, andshort-haired dogs; theirs the many sicknesses, the smal
lpox and measles,the coughing and mouth-bleeding; theirs the white skin, and softness tothe frost and storm; and theirs the pistols that shoot six times veryswift and are worthless. And yet they grow fat on their many ills, andprosper, and lay a heavy hand over all the world and tread mightily uponits peoples. And their women, too, are soft as little babes, mostbreakable and never broken, the mothers of men. And out of all thissoftness, and sickness, and weakness, come strength, and power, andauthority. They be gods, or devils, as the case may be. I do not know.What do I know, I, old Imber of the Whitefish? Only do I know that theyare past understanding, these white men, far-wanderers and fighters overthe earth that they be.
"As I say, the meat in the forest became less and less. It be true, thewhite man's gun is most excellent and kills a long way off; but of whatworth the gun, when there is no meat to kill? When I was a boy on theWhitefish there was moose on every hill, and each year came the caribouuncountable. But now the hunter may take the trail ten days and not onemoose gladden his eyes, while the caribou uncountable come no more atall. Small worth the gun, I say, killing a long way off, when there benothing to kill.
"ALL THEIR WAYS LEAD TO DEATH"FROM A PAINTING BY MAYNARD DIXON.]
"And I, Imber, pondered upon these things, watching the while theWhitefish, and the Pellys, and all the tribes of the land, perishing asperished the meat of the forest. Long I pondered. I talked with theshamans and the old men who were wise. I went apart that the sounds ofthe village might not disturb me, and I ate no meat, so that my bellyshould not press upon me and make me slow of eye and ear. I sat long andsleepless in the forest, wide-eyed for the sign, my ears patient andkeen for the word thatwas to come. And I wandered alone in the blackness of night to the riverbank, where was wind-moaning and sobbing of water, and where I soughtwisdom from the ghosts of old shamans in the trees and dead and gone.
"And in the end, as in a vision, came to me the short-haired anddetestable dogs, and the way seemed plain. By the wisdom of Otsbaok, myfather and a strong man, had the blood of our own wolf-dogs been keptclean, wherefore had they remained warm of hide and strong in theharness. So I returned to my village and made oration to the men. 'Thisbe a tribe, these white men,' I said. 'A very large tribe, and doubtlessthere is no longer meat in their land, and they are come among us tomake a new land for themselves. But they weaken us, and we die. They area very hungry folk. Already has our meat gone from us, and it were well,if we would live, that we deal by them as we have dealt by their dogs.'
"And further oration I made, counseling fight. And the men of theWhitefish listened, and some said one thing, and some another, and somespoke of other and worthless things, and no man made brave talk of deedsand war. But while the young men were weak as water and afraid, Iwatched that the old men sat silent, and that in their eyes fires cameand went. And later, when the village slept and no one knew, I drew theold men away into the forest and made more talk. And now we were agreed,and we remembered the good young days, and the free land, and the timesof plenty, and the gladness and sunshine; and we called ourselvesbrothers, and swore great secrecy, and a mighty oath to cleanse theland of the evil breed that had come upon it. It be plain we were fools,but how were we to know, we old men of the Whitefish?
"And to hearten the others, I did the first deed. I kept guard upon theYukon till the first canoe came down. In it were two white men, and whenI stood upright upon the bank and raised my hand they changed theircourse and drove in to me. And as the man in the bow lifted his head,so, that he might know wherefore I wanted him, my arrow sang through theair straight to his throat, and he knew. The second man, who held paddlein the stern, had his rifle half to his shoulder when the first of mythree spear-casts smote him.
"'These be the first,' I said, when the old men had gathered to me.'Later we will bind together all the old men of all the tribes, andafter that the young men who remain strong, and the work will becomeeasy.'
"And then the two dead white men we cast into the river. And of thecanoe, which was a very good canoe, we made a fire, and a fire, also, ofthe things within the canoe. But first we looked at the things, and theywere pouches of leather which we cut open with our knives. And insidethese pouches were many papers, like that from which thou hast read, OHowkan, with markings on them which we marveled at and could notunderstand. Now, I am become wise, and I know them for the speech of menas thou hast told me."
A whisper and buzz went around the court-room when Howkan finishedinterpreting the affair of the canoe, and one man's voice spoke up:"That was the lost '91 mail, Peter James and Delaney bringing it in andlast spoken at Le Barge by Matthews going out." The clerk scratchedsteadily away, and another paragraph was added to the history of theNorth.
"There be little more," Imber went on slowly. "It be there on the paper,the things we did. We were old men, and we did not understand. Even I,Imber, do not now understand. Secretly we slew, and continued to slay,for with our years we were crafty and we had learned the swiftness ofgoing without haste. When white men came among us with black looks andrough words, and took away six of the young men with irons binding themhelpless, we knew we must slay wider and farther. And one by one we oldmen departed up river and down to the unknown lands. It was a bravething. Old we were, and unafraid, but the fear of far places is aterrible fear to men who are old.
"So we slew, without haste, and craftily. On the Chilkoot and in theDelta we slew, from the passes to the sea, wherever the white men campedor broke their trails. It be true, they died, but it was without worth.Ever did they come over the mountains, ever did they grow and grow,while we, being old, became less and less. I remember, by the CaribouCrossing, the camp of a white man. He was a very little white man, andthree of the old men came upon him in his sleep. And the next day I cameupon the four of them. The white man alone still breathed, and there wasbreath in him to curse me once and well before he died.
"And so it went, now one old man, and now another. Sometimes the wordreached us long after of how they died, and sometimes it did not reachus. And the old men of the other tribes were weak and afraid, and wouldnot join with us. As I say, one by one, till I alone was left. I amImber, of the Whitefish people. My father was Otsbaok, a strong man.There are no Whitefish now. Of the old men I am the last. The young menand young women are gone away, some to live with the Pellys, some withthe Salmons, and more with the white men. I am very old, and very tired,and it being vain fighting the Law, as thou sayest, Howkan, I am comeseeking the Law."
"O Imber, thou art indeed a fool," said Howkan.
But Imber was dreaming. The square-browed judge likewise dreamed, andall his race rose up before him in a mighty phantasmagoria--hissteel-shod, mail-clad race, the law-giver and world-maker among thefamilies of men. He saw it dawn red-flickering across the dark forestsand sullen seas; he saw it blaze, bloody and red, to full and triumphantnoon; and down the shaded slope he saw the blood-red sands dropping intonight. And through it all he observed the Law, pitiless and potent, everunswerving and ever ordaining, greater than the motes of men whofulfilled it or were crushed by it, even as it was greater than he, hisheart speaking for softness.