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Kish, son of Kish, by
Jack London. Thus will I give six

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blankets, warm and double, six
files large and hard, six Hudson bay

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knives, keen edged and long.
Two canoes, the work of Mochum,

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the maker of things. Ten dogs, heavy shouldered and strong in the harness.

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And three guns. The trigger of
one be broken, but it is

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a good gun and can doubtless be
mended. Kish paused and swept his eyes

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over the circle of intent faces.
It was the time of the great fishing,

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and he was bidding to nob for
Sousu, his daughter. The place

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was the Saint George mission by the
Yukon, and the tribes had gathered for

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many a hundred miles from north,
south, east and west. They had

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come even from Tozikakat and far Tananah, and further o nab thou Art,

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chief of the Tananah, and I
Ki, the son of Kish and chief

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of the Tlunget. Wherefore, when
my seed springs from the loins of thy

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daughter, there shall be a friendship
between the tribes, a great friendship,

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and Tanana and Thlung it shall be
brothers of the blood. In the time

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to come. What I have said, I will do, that will I

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do and how is it with you, o, Nob, in this matter?

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Nob nodded his head gravely, his
gnarled and age twisted face inscrutably masking

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the soul that dwelt behind. His
narrow eyes burned like twin coals through their

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narrow slits as he piped in a
high cracked voice. But that is not

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all? What more? Kish demanded? Have I not offered full measure?

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Was there ever yet a Tananau maiden
who fetched so great a price? Then?

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Name her? An open snicker passed
around the circle, and Kish knew

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that he stood in shame before these
people. Nayn a good Kish, thou

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dost not understand? Nob made a
soft stroking gesture. The price is fair.

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It is a good price. Nor
do I question the broken trigger.

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But that is not all. What
of the man? Aye? What of

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the man? The circle snarled?
It is said Nob's shrill voice pipe.

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It is said that Kish does not
walk in the way of his father's.

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It is said that he has wandered
into the dark after strange gods, and

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that he has become afraid. The
face of Kish went dark. It is

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a lie, he thundered. Kish
is afraid of no man. It is

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said old nob piped On, that
he has hearkened to the speech of the

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white man up at the big House, and that he bends head to the

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white man's God, and moreover,
that blood is displeasing to the white man's

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god. Keish dropped his eyes and
his hands clenched passionately. The savvage circle

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laughed derisively, and in the ear
of nob whispered mad Wan, the Shammin,

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high priest of the tribe and maker
of medicine. The Shumon poked among

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the shadows on the rim of the
firelight and roused up a slender young boy,

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whom he brought face to face with
Kish, And in the hand of

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Keish he thrust a knife. Nob
leaned forward, Kish, O Keish,

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darest thou to kill a man.
Behold, this is kittsnu a slave.

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Strike o' keish, strike with the
strength of thy arm. The boy trembled

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and waited the stroke. Kish looked
at him, and thoughts of mister Browne's

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higher morality floated through his mind,
and strong upon him was a vision of

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the leaping flames of mister Brown's particular
brand of hell fire. The knife fell

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to the ground, and the boy
sighed and went out beyond the firelight with

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shaking knees. At the feet of
Nob sprawled a wolf dog, which bared

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its gleaming teeth, then prepared to
spring after the boy. But the shamin

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ground his foot into the brute's body, and so doing gave Nob an idea.

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And then, O kesh, what
wouldst thou do should a man do

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this thing to you? As he
spoke, Nob held a ribbon of salmon

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to white Fang, and when the
animal attempted to take it, smote him

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sharply on the nose with a stick. And afterward, o'keesh wouldst thou do?

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Thus White Fang was cringing back on
his belly and fawning to the hand

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of Nob. Listen, leaning on
the arm of Madua, Nob had risen

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to his feet. I am very
old, and because I am very old,

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I will tell thee things. Thy
father Keish was a mighty man,

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and he did love the song of
the bowstring and battle. And these eyes

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have beheld him cast a spear till
the head stood out beyond a man's body.

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But thou art unlike, since thou
left the raven to worship the wolf.

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Thou art become afraid of blood,
and thou makest thy people afraid.

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This is not good. For Behold, when I was a boy, even

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as kits knew here, there was
no white man in all the land.

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But they came one by one,
these white men, till now they are

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many, and they are a restless
breed, never content to rest by the

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fire with a full belly and let
the morrow bring its own meat. A

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curse was laid upon them, it
would seem, and they must work it

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out in toil and hardship. Kisha
startled a recollection of a hazy story told

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by mister Brown of one adam of
old time came to him, and it

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seemed that mister Brown had spoken true. So they laid hands upon all.

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They behold these white men, and
they go everywhere and behold all things,

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and ever do more follow in their
footsteps, so that if nothing can be

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done, they will come to possess
all the land, and there will be

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no room for the tribes of the
raven. Wherefore it is meet that we

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fight with them till none are left. Then will we hold the passes and

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the land, and perhaps our children
and our children's children shall flourish and grow

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fat. There is a great struggle
to come when wolf and ravens shall grapple.

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But Kish will not fight, nor
will he let his people fight.

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So it is not well that he
should take to him my daughter. Thus

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have I spoken, I Nab,
chief of the Tananah. But the white

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men are good and great. Kish
made answer. The white men have taught

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us many things. The white men
have given us blankets and knives and guns

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such as we have never made and
never could make. I remember in what

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manner we lived before they came.
I was unborn then, but I have

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it from my father. When we
went on the hunt, we must creep

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so close to the moose that a
spear cast would cover the distance. To

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day we used the white man's rifle, and farther away than can a child's

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cry be heard. We ate fish
and meat and berries. There was nothing

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else to eat, and we ate
without salt. How many may there be

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among you who care to go back
to the fish and meat without salt?

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It would have sunk home. Had
not mad one leaped to his feet,

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ere silence could come, and first
a question to thee Kish. The white

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man up at the big house tells
you that it is wrong to kill.

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Yet do we not know that the
white men kill? Have we forgotten the

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great fight on the Koyukuk or the
great fight at Neklukyeto where three white men

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killed twenty of the Toza Kakats.
Do you think we no longer remember the

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three men of the Tannanaw that the
white man Mackelrath killed. Tell me,

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o Keish, why does the Shamin
Brown teach you that it is wrong to

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fight when all his brothers fight.
Nay, nay, there is no need

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to answer, Nob piped while Kish
struggled with the paradox. It is very

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simple. The good man Brown would
hold the raven tight whilst his brothers plucked

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the feathers. He raised his voice. But so long as there is one

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tannaaw to strike a blow, or
one maiden to bear a manchild, the

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raven shall not be plucked. Nob
turned to a husky young man across the

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fire, and what sayest thou.
Makamuk, who art brother to Sousu Makamuk,

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came to his feet. A long
faced scar lifted his upper lip into

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a perpetual grin, which belied the
glowing ferocity of his eyes. This day

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he began with cunning irrelevance. I
came by the trader maclrath's cabin, and

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in the door I saw a child
laughing at the sun. And the child

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looked at me with the trader Maclrath's
eyes, and it was frightened. The

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mother ran to it and quieted it. The mother was Ziska, the clung

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a woman. A snarl of rage
rose up and drowned his voice, which

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he instilled by turning dramatically upon Kish
with outstretched arm and accusing finger. So

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you give your women away, you
flung it, and come to the tananav

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for more. But we have need
of our women, Kish, for we

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must breed men, many men against
the day when the raven grapples with the

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wolf. Through the storm of applause, Nob's voice shrilled clear, and Tha

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Maasabuk, who art her favorite brother. The young man was slender and graceful,

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with the strong akoline nose and high
brows of his type, but from

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some nervous affliction, the lid of
one eye drooped at odd times in a

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suggestive wink. Even as he arose, it drooped and rested a moment against

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his cheek. But it was not
greeted with the accustomed laughter. Every face

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was grave. I too, passed
by the trader macaelraths cabin. He rippled

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in soft girlish tones, And I
saw Indians with the sweat running into their

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eyes and their knees shaking with weariness. I say, I saw Indians groaning

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under the logs from the store which
the trader Mackelrath is to build. And

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with my eyes I saw them chopping
wood to keep the shamin browns big as

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warm through the frost of the long
nights. This be squaw work. Never

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shall the Tana now do that like
we shall be blood brothers to men,

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not squaws, and the plunget be
squaws. A deep silence fell, and

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all eyes centered on Keish. He
looked about him, carefully, deliberately,

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full into the face of each grown
man. So he said, passion lesslie,

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and so he repeated, then turned
on his heel without further word,

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and passed out into the darkness,
waiting among sprawling babies and bristling wolf dogs.

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He threaded the great camp, and
on its outskirts came upon a woman

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at work by the light of a
fire, with strings of bark stripped from

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the long roots of creeping vines.
She was braiding rope for the fishing.

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For some time, without speech,
he watched her deft hands bringing law and

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order out of the unruly mass of
curling fibers. She was good to look

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upon, swaying there to her task, strong limbed, deep chested, and

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with hips made for motherhood. And
the bronze of her face was golden in

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the flickering light, her hair blue
black, her eyes jet O susu,

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He spoke, finally, thou hast
looked upon me kindly in the days that

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have gone, and in the days
yet young, I looked kindly upon thee,

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for that thou wert chief of the
plunget, she answered quickly, And

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because thou wert big and strong.
Aye. But that was in the old

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days of the fishing, she hastened
to add. Before this Shamann Brown came

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and taught these ill things, and
led thy feet on strange trails. But

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I would tell thee. She held
up one hand in a gesture which reminded

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him of her father. Nay,
I know already the speech that stirs in

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thy throat, O kish, and
I make answer now. It so happeneth

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that the fish of the water,
and the beasts of the forest bring forth

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after their kind, And this is
good. Likewise it happeneth to women.

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It is for them to bring forth
their kind. And even the maiden,

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while she is yet a maiden,
feels the pang of the birth, and

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the pain of the breast, and
the small hands at the neck. And

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when such feeling is strong, then
does each maiden look about her with secret

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eyes for the man, for the
man who shall be fit to father her

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kind. So have I felt,
So did I feel when I looked upon

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thee and found thee big and strong, a hunter and fighter of beasts and

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men, well, able to win
meat when I should eat for two,

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well able to keep danger afar off
when my helplessness drew nigh. But that

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was before the day the shaman Braun
came into the land and taught thee.

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But it is not right, su
su I have it on good work.

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It is not right to kill.
I know what thou wouldst say. Then

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breed thou after thy kind, the
kind that does not kill. But come

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not on such quest among the tananah. For it is said in the time

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to come that the raven shall grapple
with the wolf I do not know,

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for this be the affair of men. But I do know that it is

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00:14:01,000 --> 00:14:07,440
for me to bring forth men against
that time su su kish broken. Thou

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00:14:07,519 --> 00:14:11,720
must hear me. A man would
beat me with a stick and make me

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here, she sneered, But thou
here, She thrust a bunch of bark

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00:14:16,799 --> 00:14:20,840
into his head. I cannot give
thee myself, but this, yes,

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00:14:20,360 --> 00:14:24,879
it looks fittest in thy hands.
It is squaw work so bright. Away

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00:14:26,759 --> 00:14:31,279
he flung it from him, the
angry blood pounding a muddy path under his

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bronze. One more thing, she
went on. There be an old custom

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00:14:35,559 --> 00:14:41,679
which thy father and mine were not
strangers to. When a man falls in

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00:14:41,799 --> 00:14:45,840
battle, his scalp is to be
carried away in token. Very good.

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00:14:46,279 --> 00:14:50,840
But thou, who have forsworn the
raven, must do more. Thou must

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00:14:50,879 --> 00:14:56,159
bring me not scalps, but heads, two heads. And then will I

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give thee not bark, but a
brave beaded belt and sheath and long Russian

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knife. Then while I look kindly
upon thee once again, and all will

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be well, so the man pondered. So then he turned and passed out

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through the night. Nay o kish, she called after him, not two

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heads, but three at least.
But Kish remained true to his conversion,

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lived uprightly, and made his tribes
people obey the gospels propounded by Reverend Jackson

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Brown. Through all the time of
the fishing, he gave no heed to

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the Tananah, nor took notice of
the sly things which were said, nor

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of the laughter of the women of
the many tribes. After the fishing,

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nob and his people, with great
store of salmon, sun dried and smoke

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cured, departed for the hunting on
the head reaches of the Tananah. Kish

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watched them go, but did not
fail in his attendance at mission service,

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where he prayed regularly and led the
singing with his deep bass voice. The

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00:16:00,840 --> 00:16:04,960
Reverend Jackson Brown delighted in that deep
bass voice, and because of his sterling

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00:16:06,039 --> 00:16:11,960
qualities, deemed him the most promising
convert. Mackelrath doubted this. He did

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00:16:11,000 --> 00:16:15,960
not believe in the efficacy of the
conversion of the heathen, and he was

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00:16:15,120 --> 00:16:21,000
not slow in speaking his mind.
But mister Brown was a large man in

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his way, and he argued it
out with such convincingness all of one long

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all night, that the trader driven
from position after position finally announced in desperation,

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00:16:33,840 --> 00:16:37,159
knock out my brains with apples,
Brown, if I don't become a

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convert myself. If Keish holds fast
true blue for two years, mister Brown

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never lost an opportunity, so he
clinched the matter on the spot with a

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virile hand grip, and thenceforth the
conduct of Keish was to determine the ultimate

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abiding place of Mackelrath's soul. But
there came news one day after the winter

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rhyme had settled down over the la
land sufficiently for travel. A Tananau man

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arrived at the Saint George Mission in
quest of ammunition and bringing information that Susu

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had set eyes on Nikou, a
nervy young hunter who had bid brilliantly for

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her by old nobs fire. It
was at about this time that the Reverend

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Jackson Brown came upon Kish by the
wood trail which leads down to the river.

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Kish had his best dogs in the
harness, and shoved under the sled

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lashings was his largest and finest pair
of snow shoes. Where goest thou o'

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keish hunting? Mister Brown asked,
Falling into the Indian manner, Kish looked

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him steadily in the eyes for a
full minute, then started up his dogs.

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Then again turning his deliberate gaze upon
the missionary, he answered, no,

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I go to hell. In an
open space, striving to burrow into

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the snow, as though for shelter
from the appalling desolateness, huddled, three

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dreary lodges ringed all About a dozen
paces away was the somber forest. Overhead.

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There was no keen blue sky of
naked space, but a vague,

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misty curtain pregnant with snow, which
had drawn between. There was no wind,

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no sound, nothing but the snow
and silence. Nor was there even

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the gentle stir of life about the
camp. For the hunting party had run

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upon the flank of the caribou herd, and the kill had been large.

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Thus, after the period of fasting
had come the plenitude of feasting. And

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thus in broad daylight they slept heavily
under their roofs of moose hide by a

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fire. Before one of the lodges, five pairs of snow shoes stood on

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end in their element, and by
the fire set sousu. The hood of

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her squirrel skin parka was about her
hair and well drawn up around her neck,

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but her hands were unmittened and nimbly
at work with needle and sinew,

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completing the last fantastic design on a
belt of leather faced with bright scarlet cloth.

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A dog somewhere at the rear of
one of the lodges raised a short,

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sharp bark, then ceased as abruptly
as it had begun. Once.

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Her father, in the lodge at
her back gurgled and grunted in his sleep

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bad dream, She smiled to herself, he grows old, and that last

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joint was too much. She placed
the last bead, nodded the sinew,

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and replenished the fire. Then,
after gazing long into the flames, she

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lifted her head to the harsh crunch
crunch of a moccasined foot against the flinty

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snow granules. Kish was at her
side, bending slightly forward to a load

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which he bore upon his back.
This was wrapped loosely in a soft tanned

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moose hide, and he dropped it
carelessly into the snow and sat down.

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They looked at each other long and
without speech. It it is a far

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fetch, o keish, she said, at last, A far fetch from

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Saint Jeorde mission by the yukon I
he made answer absently, his eyes fixed

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keenly upon the belt and taking note
of its girth. But where's the knife,

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he demanded. Here she drew it
from inside her parka and flashed its

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naked lengths in the firelight. It
is a good knife. Give it me,

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he commanded. Nay o keish,
she laughed. It may be that

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thou wast not born to wear it. Give it to me, he reiterated,

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without change of tone, I was
so born. But her eyes glancing

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coquettishly, pasted him to the moose
hide, saw the snow about it,

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slowly reddening. It is blood,
kish, she asked, Ay, it

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is blood, But give me the
belt and the long Russian knife. She

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felt suddenly afrayed, but thrilled when
he took the belt roughly from her.

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Thrilled to the roughness, she looked
at him softly, and aware of a

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pain at the breast and of small
hands clutching her throat. It was made

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for a smaller man, he remarked, grimly, drawing in his abdomen and

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clasping the buckle at the first hole. Sousu smiled, and her eyes were

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yet softer Again, she felt the
soft hands at her throat. He was

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good to look upon, and the
belt was indeed small, made for a

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smaller man. But what did it
matter? She could make many belts.

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But the blood, she asked,
urged on by a hope new born and

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growing the blood? Kish is it? Are they heads? I? They

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must be very fresh? Else would
the blood be frozen? I? It

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is not cold, and they be
fresh, quite fresh. Oh, keees.

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Her face was warm and bright,
and for me, I for thee.

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He took hold of a corner of
the height, flirted it open,

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and rolled the heads out before her. Three, he whispered, savagely,

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nay four at least, but she
sat transfixed. There they lay the soft

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featured Nikou, the gnarled old face
of Noob mocka muck, grinning at her

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with his lifted upper lip. And
lastly Nossabach, his eyelid up to its

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old trick, drooped on his girlish
cheek in a suggestive wink. There they

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lay the firelight flashing upon and playing
over them, and from each of them

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a widening circle dyed the snow to
scarlet. God by the fire, the

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white crust gave way beneath the head
of nob, which rolled over like a

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thing alive, spun around and came
to rest at her feet, but she

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did not move. Kish, too, sat motionless, his eyes unblinking,

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centered steadfastly upon her. Once in
the forest, an overburdened pine dropped its

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load of snow, and the echoes
reverberated hollowly down the gorge, but neither

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stirred. The short day had been
waning fast, and darkness was wrapping round

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the camp when White Fang trotted up
toward the fire. He paused to reconnoiter,

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but not being driven back, came
closer. His nose shot swiftly to

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the side, nostrils a tremble,
and bristles rising along the spine, and

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straight and true, he followed the
sudden scent to his master's head. He

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sniffed it gingerly at first, and
licked the forehead with his red, lolling

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tongue. Then he sat abruptly down, pointed his nose up at the first

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faint star, and raised the long
wolf howl. This brought Sousu to herself.

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She glanced across at Kish, who
had unsheathed the Russian knife and was

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watching her intently. His face was
firm and set, and in it she

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read the law. Slipping back the
hood of her parka, she buried her

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neck and rose to her feet.
There she paused and took a long look

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about her, at the rimming forest, at the faint stars in the sky,

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at the camp, at the snow
shoes in the snow, A last,

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long comprehensive look at life. A
light breeze stirred her hair from the

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side, and for the space of
one deep breath, she turned her head

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and followed it around until she met
it full faced. Then she thought of

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her children ever to be unborn,
and she walked over to Keish and said,

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I am ready Keish, son of
Keish by Jack London