“What more?” Keesh demanded.  “Have I not offered full measure?  Was there ever yet a Tana-naw maiden who fetched so great a price?  Then name her!”

An open snicker passed round the circle, and Keesh knew that he stood in shame before these people.

“Nay, nay, good Keesh, thou dost not understand.”  Gnob made a soft, stroking gesture.  “The price is fair.  It is a good price.  Nor do I question the broken trigger.  But that is not all.  What of the man?”

“Ay, what of the man?” the circle snarled.

“It is said,” Gnob’s shrill voice piped, “it is said that Keesh does not walk in the way of his fathers.  It is said that he has wandered into the dark, after strange gods, and that he is become afraid.”

The face of Keesh went dark.  “It is a lie!” he thundered.  “Keesh is afraid of no man!”

“It is said,” old Gnob piped on, “that he has harkened to the speech of the white man up at the Big House, and that he bends head to the white man’s god, and, moreover, that blood is displeasing to the white man’s god.”

Keesh dropped his eyes, and his hands clenched passionately.  The savage circle laughed derisively, and in the ear of Gnob whispered Madwan, the shaman, high-priest of the tribe and maker of medicine.

The shaman poked among the shadows on the rim of the firelight and roused up a slender young boy, whom he brought face to face with Keesh; and in the hand of Keesh he thrust a knife.

Gnob leaned forward.  “Keesh!  O Keesh!  Darest thou to kill a man?  Behold!  This be Kitz-noo, a slave.  Strike, O Keesh, strike with the strength of thy arm!”

The boy trembled and waited the stroke.  Keesh looked at him, and thoughts of Mr. Brown’s higher morality floated through his mind, and strong upon him was a vision of the leaping flames of Mr. Brown’s particular brand of hell-fire.  The knife fell to the ground, and the boy sighed and went out beyond the firelight with shaking knees.  At the feet of Gnob sprawled a wolf-dog, which bared its gleaming teeth and prepared to spring after the boy.  But the shaman ground his foot into the brute’s body, and so doing, gave Gnob an idea.

“And then, O Keesh, what wouldst thou do, should a man do this thing to you?”—­as he spoke, Gnob held a ribbon of salmon to White Fang, and when the animal attempted to take it, smote him sharply on the nose with a stick.  “And afterward, O Keesh, wouldst thou do thus?”—­White Fang was cringing back on his belly and fawning to the hand of Gnob.

“Listen!”—­leaning on the arm of Madwan, Gnob had risen to his feet.  “I am very old, and because I am very old I will tell thee things.  Thy father, Keesh, was a mighty man.  And he did love the song of the bowstring in battle, and these eyes have beheld him cast a spear till the head stood out beyond a man’s body.  But thou art unlike.  Since thou left the Raven to worship the Wolf, thou art become afraid of blood,