wild, and they're bitter fighters. Right at the toe of my moccasin lay a
big brute, and by the heel another. I doubled the first one's tail,
quick, till it snapped in my grip. As his jaws clipped together where my
hand should have been, I threw the second one by the scruff straight into
his mouth. 'Go!' I cried to Tilly.

"You know how they fight. In the wink of an eye there was a raging
hundred of them, top and bottom, ripping and tearing each other, kids and
squaws tumbling which way, and the camp gone wild. Tilly'd slipped away,
so I followed. But when I looked over my shoulder at the skirt of the
crowd, the devil laid me by the heart, and I dropped the blanket and went
back.

"By then the dogs'd been knocked apart and the crowd was untangling
itself. Nobody was in proper place, so they didn't note that Tilly'd
gone. 'Hello,' I says, gripping Chief George by the hand. 'May your
potlach-smoke rise often, and the Sticks bring many furs with the
spring.'

"Lord love me, Dick, but he was joyed to see me,--him with the upper hand
and wedding Tilly. Chance to puff big over me. The tale that I was hot
after her had spread through the camps, and my presence did him proud.
All hands knew me, without my blanket, and set to grinning and giggling.
It was rich, but I made it richer by playing unbeknowing.

"'What's the row?' I asks. 'Who's getting married now?'

"'Chief George,' the shaman says, ducking his reverence to him.

"'Thought he had two _klooches_.'