Where the Sun Swings North | Page 9

store.
A week later on the ridge above the new-made grave of Naleenah, a
white girl stood talking to a small boy by her side. Above the
amber-freckled nose of the youngster wide grey eyes were raised in
eager coaxing to her face. From the crown of his bare head, a lock of

dark red hair trembling with absurd earnestness stood up from the mass
of its fellows.
"Oh, Je-an! Don't put on your shoes and stockings just yet! Let's have
one more story before we go back to the post. P-l-e-a-s-e, Auntie Jean!"
Jean Wiley dropped to the ground a bundle made of her discarded
footwear. Earlier in the afternoon her nephew's barefoot enjoyment of
the beach sand had enticed her to remove her own shoes and stockings,
and delighting in the feel of the cool earth against her pink soles, she
had not replaced them when they decided to follow the trail to the ridge.
She tossed her head, and even in the sunless afternoon, the dark mass of
hair that tumbled down her back seemed shot through with glints of
copper.
"I wouldn't mind going without them always, Loll," she said, holding
out a slim foot and contemplating the freedom of her five, wriggling,
perfect toes. "But--" the foot took its place beside its stationary twin,
"you see, little man, it isn't done at my age, even in Katleean." Her
long-lashed hazel eyes, full of the dreams of eighteen happy years,
laughed down at the boy, and her slender fingers, that could coax such
tender harmonies from the strings of a violin, busied themselves with
the ribbon that bound the hair at the back of her neck.
It was one of the lavender dream-days peculiar to the late summer of
the North. Faint wisps of colorful mist clung to the pickets of the small
fences in the Indian burial-place below them. The totems and the
windows of the tiny grave-houses were filmed with it, and through the
dim glass appeared vague glimpses of the kettles, blankets and
provision inside the houses of the dead--material comforts which the
Thlinget Indians provide for the departed soul's journey over the Spirit
Trail to the Ghost's Home. On the quiet bay below, the Hoonah, blurred
in mist, tugged gently at her anchor. Some hundred yards to the left
smoke from the trading-post rose above the alder trees.
"This is a dandy place for story-telling, Jean. See!" Little Laurence
Boreland pointed to the dim-limned schooner. "The Hoonah looks like
a ghost-ship out there. Listen! I'll tell you the story Kayak Bill scared

me most to death with last night. Ugh! It's spooky, Jean!" The boy's
eyes were round and his voice had lowered at the remembered thrills of
terror. He tugged at the girl's short skirt, until she sat down beside him,
tucking her slim bare feet beneath her as she prepared to listen.
A raven, weird epitome of Thlinget myth and legend, croaked
spasmodically from the white branch of a dead spruce behind them.
The damp air had in it the freshness of new-cut hemlock boughs, a wild,
vigorous fragrance that stirs the imagination with strange, illusive
promises of the wilderness.
"And the door of the dead-house slowly opened," Loll ended his tale,
pointing to the graveyard below for local color, "and the door
s-l-o-w-l-y opened and a long, white finger--a bony finger,
beckoned----"
He broke off with a gasp of astonishment and terror, for above the rank
growth of Indian celery in front of the lonely grave-house door, there
was a sudden, unmistakable flutter of white. So thoroughly had the
little fellow lost himself in the weird mysteries of his own creating that
panic took possession of him, and communicated itself to the girl
beside him. They sprang to their feet, and with one accord raced toward
the trading-post.
Near the courtyard their footsteps slackened, and Jean began to recover
herself, reminded of her shoes and stockings left behind on the knoll.
She became suddenly ashamed of her headlong flight, precipitated, as
she now saw, by the first breath of afternoon breeze as it came in from
the sea and fluttered a piece of weather-bleached canvas nailed over the
grave-house door.
"Goodness, Loll, you frightened me nearly to death with your wild
imaginings!" She laughed. "Let's run back now and get our shoes and
stockings."
The youngster laid a detaining hand on her arm. "But, Jean," his shrill
voice trembled, "didn't you see it--the long, white skeleton finger?"

"Nonsense!" She stood a moment pointing out the reason for the flutter
of white, and as she did so a group of Indians landing from canoes on
the beach, came up the trail toward the post. Curiously and quickly they
gathered about the strangers. Many of them had never before seen a
white girl or