“What’s it all about?” the Boy asked.

“Ol’ Chief heap sick,” said the buck on the Boy’s right.

“Ol’ Chief, ol’ father, b’long me,” Nicholas observed with pride.

“Yes; but aren’t the Holy Cross people nursing him?”

“Brother Paul gone; white medicine no good.”

They all shook their heads and coughed despairingly.

“Then try s’m’ other—­some yella-brown, Esquimaux kind,” hazarded the Boy lightly, hardly noticing what he was saying till he found nearly all the eyes of the company fixed intently upon him.  Nicholas was translating, and it was clear the Boy had created a sensation.

“Father Wills no like,” said one buck doubtfully.  “He make cross-eyes when Shaman come.”

“Oh yes, medicine-man,” said the Boy, following the narrative eagerly.

“Shaman go way,” volunteered an old fellow who hitherto had held his peace; “all get sick”—­he coughed painfully—­“heap Pymeuts die.”

“Father Wills come.”  Nicholas took up the tale afresh.  “Shaman come.  Father Wills heap mad.  He no let Shaman stay.”

“No; him say, ‘Go! plenty quick, plenty far.  Hey, you! Mush!’”

They smoked awhile in silence broken only by coughs.

“Shaman say, ‘Yukon Inua plenty mad.’”

“Who is Yukon Inua?  Where does he live?”

“Unner Yukon ice,” whispered Nicholas.  “Oh, the river spirit?...  Of course.”

“Him heap strong.  Long time”—­he motioned back into the ages with one slim brown hand—­“fore Holy Cross here, Yukon Inua take good care Pymeuts.”

“No tell Father Wills?”

“No.”

Then in a low guttural voice:  “Shaman come again.”

“Gracious!  When?”

“To-night.”

“Jiminny Christmas!”

They sat and smoked and coughed.  By-and-by, as if wishing thoroughly to justify their action, Nicholas resumed: 

“You savvy, ol’ father try white medicine—­four winter, four summer.  No good.  Ol’ father say, ’Me well man?  Good friend Holy Cross, good friend Russian mission.  Me ol’? me sick?  Send for Shaman.’”

The entire company grunted in unison.

“You no tell?” Nicholas added with recurrent anxiety.

“No, no; they shan’t hear through me.  I’m safe.”

Presently they all got up, and began removing and setting back the hewn logs that formed the middle of the floor.  It then appeared that, underneath, was an excavation about two feet deep.  In the centre, within a circle of stones, were the charred remains of a fire, and here they proceeded to make another.

As soon as it began to blaze, Yagorsha the Story-teller took the cover off the smoke-hole, so the company was not quite stifled.

A further diversion was created by several women crawling in, bringing food for the men-folk, in old lard-cans or native wooden kantaks.  These vessels they deposited by the fire, and with an exchange of grunts went out as they had come.