Nicholas had risen again, his mouth set hard, his small hands shaking.  He unrolled an old reindeer-skin full of holes, and examined it.  At this the girl, who had been about to make up the fire, threw down the bit of driftwood and hid her face.

The sick man babbled on.

Faint under the desolate sound another—­sibilant, clearer, uncannily human.  Nicholas had heard, too, for he threw down the tattered deerskin, and went to the other side of the fire.  Voices in the tunnel.  Nicholas held back the flap and gravely waited there, till one Pymeut after another crawled in.  They were the men the Boy had seen at the Kachime, with one exception—­a vicious-looking old fellow, thin, wiry, with a face like a smoked chimpanzee and eyes of unearthly brightness.  He was given the best place by the fire, and held his brown claws over the red coals while the others were finding their places.

The Boy, feeling he would need an interpreter, signed to Muckluck to come and sit by him.  Grave as a judge she got up, and did as she was bid.

“That the Shaman?” whispered the Boy.

She nodded.  It was plain that this apparition, however hideous, had given her great satisfaction.

“Any more people coming?”

“Got no more now in Pymeut.”

“Where is everybody?”

“Some sick, some dead.”

The old Chief rambled on, but not so noisily.

“See,” whispered Muckluck, “devil ’fraid already.  He begin to speak small.”

The Shaman never once looked towards the sufferer till he himself was thoroughly warm.  Even then he withdrew from the genial glow, only to sit back, humped together, blinking, silent.  The Boy began to feel that, if he did finally say something it would be as surprising as to hear an aged monkey break into articulate speech.

Nicholas edged towards the Shaman, presenting something in a birch-bark dish.

“What’s that?”

“A deer’s tongue,” whispered Muckluck.

The Boy remembered the Koyukun song, “Thanks for a good meal to Kuskokala, the Shaman.”

Nicholas seemed to be haranguing the Shaman deferentially, but with spirit.  He pulled out from the bottom of his father’s bed three fine marten-skins, shook them, and dangled them before the Shaman.  They produced no effect.  He then took a box of matches and a plug of the Boy’s tobacco out of his pocket, and held the lot towards the Shaman, seeming to say that to save his life he couldn’t rake up another earthly thing to tempt his Shamanship.  Although the Shaman took the offerings his little black eyes glittered none the less rapaciously, as they flew swiftly round the room, falling at last with a vicious snap and gleam upon the Boy.  Then it was that for the first time he spoke.

“Nuh! nuh!” interrupted Muckluck, chattering volubly, and evidently commending the Boy to the Shaman.  Several of the old bucks laughed.

“He say Yukon Inua no like you.”