"'I am very cold. May I warm myself at your fire?'"

"They saw how little and naked he was, and how he shivered, so they
did not throw sticks at him, but allowed him to creep close. He
watched his chance, and when they were not looking he picked up a
red-hot coal in his beak and flew back home with it as fast as ever
he could--and that is how fire came to the Indian people."

"Of course the coal was hot, and it burned his throat till a drop of
blood came through, so ever since that day the snowbird has had a
red spot on his throat."

The two children spoke out in their mother's tongue, clamoring for
the story of the Good Beaver who saved the hunter's life, and she
began, this time in the language of the Yukon people, while Gale
listened to the low music of her voice, muffled and broken by the
log partition.

His squaw came in, her arrival unannounced except by the scuff of
her moccasins, and seated herself against the wall. She did not use
a chair, of which there were several, but crouched upon a bear-skin,
her knees beneath her chin, her toes a trifle drawn together. She
sat thus for a long time, while Necia continued her stories and put
the little ones to bed. Soon the girl came to say good-night.

John Gale had never kissed his daughter, and, as it was not a custom
of her mother's race, she never missed the caresses. On rare
occasions the old man romped with the little ones and took them in
his arms and acted as other fathers act, but he had never done these
things with her. When she had gone he spoke without moving.