“Had charge of my traps for me,” Dick answered, “down on the Columbia.  Pretty wild, wasn’t he, with a warm place in his heart for whiskey and women?”

“The very chap.  Went trading with him for a couple of seasons—­hooch, and blankets, and such stuff.  Then got a sloop of my own, and not to cut him out, came down Juneau way.  That’s where I met Killisnoo; I called her Tilly for short.  Met her at a squaw dance down on the beach.  Chief George had finished the year’s trade with the Sticks over the Passes, and was down from Dyea with half his tribe.  No end of Siwashes at the dance, and I the only white.  No one knew me, barring a few of the bucks I’d met over Sitka way, but I’d got most of their histories from Happy Jack.

“Everybody talking Chinook, not guessing that I could spit it better than most; and principally two girls who’d run away from Haine’s Mission up the Lynn Canal.  They were trim creatures, good to the eye, and I kind of thought of casting that way; but they were fresh as fresh-caught cod.  Too much edge, you see.  Being a new-comer, they started to twist me, not knowing I gathered in every word of Chinook they uttered.

“I never let on, but set to dancing with Tilly, and the more we danced the more our hearts warmed to each other.  ‘Looking for a woman,’ one of the girls says, and the other tosses her head and answers, ’Small chance he’ll get one when the women are looking for men.’  And the bucks and squaws standing around began to grin and giggle and repeat what had been said.  ‘Quite a pretty boy,’ says the first one.  I’ll not deny I was rather smooth-faced and youngish, but I’d been a man amongst men many’s the day, and it rankled me.  ‘Dancing with Chief George’s girl,’ pipes the second.  ’First thing George’ll give him the flat of a paddle and send him about his business.’  Chief George had been looking pretty black up to now, but at this he laughed and slapped his knees.  He was a husky beggar and would have used the paddle too.

“‘Who’s the girls?’ I asked Tilly, as we went ripping down the centre in a reel.  And as soon as she told me their names I remembered all about them from Happy Jack.  Had their pedigree down fine—­several things he’d told me that not even their own tribe knew.  But I held my hush, and went on courting Tilly, they a-casting sharp remarks and everybody roaring.  ‘Bide a wee, Tommy,’ I says to myself; ‘bide a wee.’

“And bide I did, till the dance was ripe to break up, and Chief George had brought a paddle all ready for me.  Everybody was on the lookout for mischief when we stopped; but I marched, easy as you please, slap into the thick of them.  The Mission girls cut me up something clever, and for all I was angry I had to set my teeth to keep from laughing.  I turned upon them suddenly.

“‘Are you done?’ I asked.