save for Alluna and the youngsters. In return these people brought
him many skins and much fresh meat, for which he paid no price, and,
with the fall, his cache was filled with fish of which the bulk were
dried king salmon as long as a grown man's leg and worth a dollar
apiece to any traveller.

There are men whose wits are quick as light, and whose muscles have
been so tempered and hardened by years of exercise that they are
like those of a wild animal. Of such was John Gale; but with all his
intelligence he was very slow at reading, hence he chose to spend
his evenings with his pipe and his thoughts, rather than with a
book, as lonesome men are supposed to do. He did with little sleep,
and many nights he sat alone till Alluna and Necia would be awakened
by his heavy step as he went to his bed. That he was a man who could
really think, and that his thoughts were engrossing, no one doubted
who saw him sitting enthralled at such a time, for he neither
rocked, nor talked, nor moved a muscle hour after hour, and only his
eyes were alive. To-night the spell was on him again, and he sat
bulked up in his chair, rocklike and immovable.

From the open door of the next room he could hear Necia and the
little ones. She had made them ready for bed, and was telling them
the tale of the snow-bird's spot.

"So when all the other birds had failed," he heard her say, "the
little snowbird asked for a chance to try. He flew and flew, and
just before he came to the edge of the world where the two Old Women
lived he pulled out all of his feathers. When he came to them he
said:"