"There were no paddles?" Opee-Kwan asked softly, returning the pipe.

"The south wind was behind," Nam-Bok explained.

"But the wind-drift is slow."

"The schooner had wings--thus." He sketched a diagram of masts and
sails in the sand, and the men crowded around and studied it. The wind
was blowing briskly, and for more graphic elucidation he seized the
corners of his mother's shawl and spread them out till it bellied like
a sail. Bask-Wah-Wan scolded and struggled, but was blown down the
beach for a score of feet and left breathless and stranded in a heap
of driftwood. The men uttered sage grunts of comprehension, but Koogah
suddenly tossed back his hoary head.

"Ho! Ho!" he laughed. "A foolish thing, this big canoe! A most foolish
thing! The plaything of the wind! Wheresoever the wind goes, it goes
too. No man who journeys therein may name the landing beach, for
always he goes with the wind, and the wind goes everywhere, but no man
knows where."

"It is so," Opee-Kwan supplemented gravely. "With the wind the going
is easy, but against the wind a man striveth hard; and for that they
had no paddles these men on the big canoe did not strive at all."

"Small need to strive," Nam-Bok cried angrily. "The schooner went
likewise against the wind."

"And what said you made the sch--sch--schooner go?" Koogah asked,
tripping craftily over the strange word.