staggering shape, waterlogged, reeled The rocks seemed to leap forward from the rim of the storm and came and close about them like jawsbattling after Kweetchel. Annoish- granite jaws streaming with bronze Haung still followed.

kelp-curtains. From the ledges the Kolite bent to the paddle. The little sea-bulls reared to gaze and bellow, canoe rode the waves like a duck. and right and left the cows dived Grimly behind her labored the big into the sea. The surf thundered to canoe of the Haida. She was light right and left of them, to east and ening each moment as the slaves of west. Only on the path of the needle

. Annoish-Haung bailed out the brine. was a narrow channel of deep water. Kweetchel once more took the paddle. Kweetchel yelled aloud and dug He glanced at the compass. It

It the paddle deep. The little canoe still headed them resolutely north. heaved, heaved, heaved to heaven; Among the low cloud-banks to east the dark mouth of the cave seemed to and west they saw islands of refuge, spin toward them; there was about channels that offered escape, but one chance in a hundred. Kweetchel passed them one by one, They were through, and a sheet and Annoish-Haung followed fast. He of foam shouldered them quietly fled north into the clear running sea. into the cave.

Ahead of them reared a great Rocks buttressed the entrance, crag, an islet of honey-gold rock, whitened with the droppings of a grown with bright-green moss and all million tern, and these and the hollowed with the sea. Round its reefs allowed only the overflow of base the jade-green rollers broke for the foam to enter the cave. ever in a thresh and thunder along a very still place, floored with this hidden reefs, and in time they could shallow pool. The rocks were all see the sea-lions lying as thick along covered with a rose-red incrustation, the reefs as grubs on a leaf; the roar

and tufted with brown and emerald ing of the happy sea-bulls mingled weeds, in which lived

lived enormous with the roaring of the foam.

noduled crabs, purple and scarlet. Toward this crag Kweetchel drove In one wall of the cave was a rosy straight, and Kolite thought, “This recess, like a shrine. Kweetchel ran is the end,” for she believed he meant the canoe behind one of the buttresses to dash against the rocks and die. that flanked the mouth of the cave,

Kweetchel believed at first that this and lifted Kolite out, and set her in was what the thing meant; then he this recess.

this recess. Then he caught up a saw, due ahead, a break in the surf spear and looked from the entrance. and a dark hollow behind it.

There was a cry of death. Death He glanced back. The big canoe had struck the sea-hawk on the sea. was very near, but hesitating—so near The hands of the weary slaves had that he could

see Annoish-Haung not been so true as the hand of striking his slaves, who had no Kweetchel. He saw the Haida lift stomach for the surf, flashing and for the opening of the reef, plunge thundering in the silver sun. Kweet- forward on the shoulders of the rollchel headed for the narrow break in ers, and miss it. In an instant the the reef.

great canoe was flung aside. Her

It was

carved prow crashed upon the rock, Red ripples ran and broke about the and she split from prow to stern and knees of Kweetchel. He stood heavsank. The slaves went down in the ing, panting, staring at Annoishrush of the foam; they were broken Haung, who lay very still. Kweetagainst the reefs. Only one man, chel ran forward to look at him. holding a spear in his teeth, leaped Kolite screamed, but she was too late. clear, dragged himself upward by the Stricken to death, the sea-hawk slippery kelp to the ledge where the could still slay. As Kweetchel bent sea-lions roared and swerved and made above him, his arms shot upward and ready to charge, and staggered toward wrapped about the body of Kweetchel. the cave. It was Annoish-Haung. Kweetchel struggled, but he could not

He came to the entrance of the break away. Still bound in the emcave, and Kweetchel met him there. brace, but gripping his spear, he fell. They closed at once, stabbing with The dying Haida, holding Kweetchel, shortened spears. Great and fierce hurled himself from the mouth of the was Annoish-Haung among the fierce cave into the sea. Haida, and now he was half mad Kolite ran from the recess. She with anger. He drove Kweetchel leaned from the lip of the entrance back and back into the cave. They and gazed down into the realms of splashed and thundered in the still Scanawa. She did not pray now. All pool. Their blood stained it. The her being was in her eyes. water rocked, and green reflections Two minutes passed, three minutes. flowed upon the rosy walls. The huge There was a boiling trouble in the crabs ran

sidewise, winnowing the wash of the surf. Something dark water with their horrid feathered jaws. emerged. It was a man's head. A And in the niche Kolite shuddered. man's hands clawed feebly at the

Annoish-Haung shouted his war- streaming rock beneath the mouth cry and drove with his spear. Kweet- of the cave.

of the cave. The surf heaved him chel avoided it, and the impetus of upward, sucked him away. It was the stroke carried the Haida past Kweetchel. him. Annoish-Haung recovered in- Kolite stripped off her girdle. She stantly, but Kweetchel had had time lay on the rock, gripping with one hand. for just one slash with the blade of With the other, as Kweetchel was lifthis spear, across the forehead, under ed again on the wave, she flung the the head-band with its silver crest. girdle. He caught it. Somehow, on

Blood from the shallow cut blinded the shoulder of the wave, she dragged Annoish-Haung. Before he could clear him into the cave. He fell forward, his eyes, Kweetchel had run in again breathing terribly. She thought he and slashed his knee. He dropped was dead. She took his head on her to the other. He flung his spear, knees and patted his face with her but he could not see, and it went hands. In a little while Kweetchel wide. Kweetchel drove his spear in- looked at her and said: to the body of Annoish-Haung. The “Annoish-Haung is dead. I killed Haida plunged forward and fell at the him in the sea." mouth of the cave, crashing into the They spent three fireless days on the shallow pool.

rock, eating sea urchins and dulse, while Kweetchel recovered a little from pass-needle pointed north, the other his wounds, and, like another traveler pointed south; only Kweetchel did not before him, frapped his ship; for the happen to notice this before. Their canoe had been scraped on the reef, troubles were over. If they had not and Kweetchel must kill a sea-lion and fallen in with the schooner, they would wrap her with strips of the hide, and probably have gone on to the north brace her with splinters of Annoish- pole. Now everything was all right. Haung's canoe washed up on the tide. They could go home without fear of He also made a very fine song about angering the masterful thing. the fight in the cave, and sang it to They were very happy. The capKolite, beating on the side of the dug- tain of the schooner gave them a passout for a drum. Then, suffering badly age, and eventually landed them near from thirst, they put to sea again. their old village. He vainly tried to

Their one desire was to go home. explain to Kweetchel the compass. But the thing still pointed implac- Kweetchel stayed with the remnant ably north, and they did not dare dis- of his own people. In time missionaries obey a spirit that had done so much found him, and he stopped eating dogs for them. So north they went once and keeping slaves, and sang hymns more. They went north forty-eight and wore a second-hand hat instead. hours straight, paddling against half He himself told me this story, with a gale, the dugout making water bad- trimmings, years ago. ly. They were nearly dead when they He was a very old an then. I fell in with a small trading-schooner thought he must have died since, but beating down from Gold Harbor, and the other day I saw a little totem-pole the captain took them on board. He in a store in Victoria. It was two could n't speak Kweetchel's language, feet high, carved of yellow cedar, and but he knew some Haida, and Kolite gaily painted, such as old Indians told him their story. At the end of it make to sell to the summer tourists he said:

on the coast. And soon as I saw it, "Where do you want to go now?” I knew Kweetchel must have made it,

"We want to go home," said Kweet- for it was carved with all the characchel, sadly, through Kolite, "but we ters of his saga. He was there, with dare n't do it, because the spirit in the Kolite and the big canoe and the little box says go north." And he showed canoe and a sea-lion and an albatross, the sacred compass to the white man. and a terrible representation of Un

The white man began to laugh. It Una swallowing up Annoish-Haung. is a way they have at the most reason- On the very top was something. able things. He laughed and laughed. I went into the store. They wanted Then something in the faces of Kweet- ten dollars for the pole, which was dear. chel and Kolite made him grave.

"But, as you can see," they said, "it “But you can go south,” he said has a heap on it. Only no one knows kindly.

what the thing on the top is." “Yetzhahada, the thing says north," I bought the pole, because, you see, said Kolite, resignedly.

I knew all about it, and what the "It says south, too. Look."

thing on the top was. It was a conOf course, when one end of the com- ventionalized mariner's compass.

I

AM not sure where or when I first an article by him on London, and

met Henry James, but I distinctly from the train somewhere between remember the first important letter I Lyons and Paris he wrote me that, got from him, though I cannot find it getting out at the Lyons station for now. Had I been able to find it, I a cup of bouillon, he picked up THE

. would have tried to get it in the very CENTURY MAGAZINE on a book-stall unintelligible volume that recently and liked the drawings so much he appeared of James's letters. I say had to tell me so, which is a great unintelligible because I would defy deal more than most authors do. any one who did not know the people But, then, James was more than most of those circles to understand the authors. And a little while after, volumes of letters of James, Meredith, I ran into him in Macmillan's ofand Swinburne. There are few or no fice in London, and he asked me to explanations as to people and things lunch at his flat in DeVere Gardens. in the letters, and the letters do not I remember it was hot, and James was explain themselves.

standing in a red undershirt, before a Though, as I say, I am not wholly high writing-desk in a dark room, which certain when or where I first met was n't exactly the usual idea of him. James, I remember his first letter. And I remember, too, that he told me I had made a series of drawings for he was settling Daumier in his place