“Oh, battles are over and blood-feuds are done, but the need for a story-teller abides.  In most villages he is a bigger man than the chief—­they’re all ‘ol’ chiefs,’ the few that are left—­and when they die there will be no more.  So the tribal story-teller comes to be the most important character”—­the Jesuit smiled in that shrewd and gentle way of his—­“that is, of course, after the Shaman, as the Russians call him, the medicine-man, who is a teller of stories, too, in his more circumscribed fashion.  But it’s the Story-teller who helps his people through the long winter—­helps them to face the terrible new enemies, epidemic disease and famine.  He has always been their best defence against that age-old dread they all have of the dark.  Yes, no one better able to send such foes flying than Yagorsha of Pymeut.  Still, Nicholas is a good second.”  The Prince of Pymeut shook his head.

“Tell them ‘The White Crow’s Last Flight,’” urged the priest.

But Nicholas was not in the vein, and when they all urged him overmuch, he, in self-defence, pulled a knife out of his pocket and a bit of walrus ivory about the size of his thumb, and fell to carving.

“What you makin’?”

“Button,” says Nicholas; “me heap hurry get him done.”

“It looks more like a bird than a button,” remarked the Boy.

“Him bird—­him button,” replied the imperturbable one.

“Half the folk-lore of the North has to do with the crow (or raven),” the priest went on.  “Seeing Kaviak’s feather reminded me of a native cradle-song that’s a kind of a story, too.  It’s been roughly translated.”

“Can you say it?”

“I used to know how it went.”

He began in a deep voice: 

  “’The wind blows over the Yukon. 
  My husband hunts deer on the Koyukun mountains. 
  Ahmi, ahmi, sleep, little one.

There is no wood for the fire, The stone-axe is broken, my husband carries the other.  Where is the soul of the sun?  Hid in the dam of the beaver, waiting the spring-time.  Ahmi, ahmi, sleep little one, wake not!

Look not for ukali, old woman.  Long since the cache was emptied, the crow lights no more on the ridge pole.  Long since, my husband departed.  Why does he wait in the mountains?  Ahmi, ahmi, sleep little one, softly.

  Where, where, where is my own? 
  Does he lie starving on the hillside?  Why does he linger? 
  Comes he not soon I must seek him among the mountains. 
  Ahmi, ahmi, little one, sleep sound.

  Hush! hush! hush!  The crow cometh laughing. 
  Red is his beak, his eyes glisten, the false one! 
  “Thanks for a good meal to Kuskokala the Shaman—­
  On the far mountain quietly lieth your husband.” 
  Ahmi, ahmi, sleep little one, wake not.

  “Twenty deers’ tongues tied to the pack on his shoulders;
  Not a tongue in his mouth to call to his wife with. 
  Wolves, foxes, and ravens are tearing and fighting for morsels. 
  Tough and hard are the sinews; not so the child in your bosom.” 
  Ahmi, ahmi, sleep little one, wake not!