“A low cunning came to me, and I made myself agreeable and servile.  That night I danced and sang, and did my best to amuse them, for I was resolved to incur no more of the maltreatment which had plunged me into darkness.  Now the Deer Men traded with the Sea Men, and the Sea Men with the whites, especially the whalers.  So later I discovered a deck of cards in the possession of one of the women, and I proceeded to mystify the Chow Chuen with a few commonplace tricks.  Likewise, with fitting solemnity, I perpetrated upon them the little I knew of parlor legerdemain.  Result:  I was appreciated at once, and was better fed and better clothed.

“To make a long story short, I gradually became a man of importance.  First the old people and the women came to me for advice, and later the chiefs.  My slight but rough and ready knowledge of medicine and surgery stood me in good stead, and I became indispensable.  From a slave, I worked myself to a seat among the head men, and in war and peace, so soon as I had learned their ways, was an unchallenged authority.  Reindeer was their medium of exchange, their unit of value as it were, and we were almost constantly engaged in cattle forays among the adjacent clans, or in protecting our own herds from their inroads.  I improved upon their methods, taught them better strategy and tactics, and put a snap and go into their operations which no neighbor tribe could withstand.

“But still, though I became a power, I was no nearer my freedom.  It was laughable, for I had over-reached myself and made myself too valuable.  They cherished me with exceeding kindness, but they were jealously careful.  I could go and come and command without restraint, but when the trading parties went down to the coast I was not permitted to accompany them.  That was the one restriction placed upon my movements.

“Also, it is very tottery in the high places, and when I began altering their political structures I came to grief again.  In the process of binding together twenty or more of the neighboring tribes in order to settle rival claims, I was given the over-lordship of the federation.  But Old Pi-Une was the greatest of the under-chiefs,—­a king in a way,—­and in relinquishing his claim to the supreme leadership he refused to forego all the honors.  The least that could be done to appease him was for me to marry his daughter Ilswunga.  Nay, he demanded it.  I offered to abandon the federation, but he would not hear of it.  And—­”

“And?” Mrs. Schoville murmured ecstatically.

“And I married Ilswunga, which is the Chow Chuen name for Wild Deer. 
Poor Ilswunga!  Like Swinburne’s Iseult of Brittany, and I Tristram! 
The last I saw of her she was playing solitaire in the Mission of
Irkutsky and stubbornly refusing to take a bath.”

“Oh, mercy!  It’s ten o’clock!” Mrs. Schoville suddenly cried, her husband having at last caught her eye from across the room.  “I’m so sorry I can’t hear the rest, Mr. St. Vincent, how you escaped and all that.  But you must come and see me.  I am just dying to hear!”