want to go. He is like dog that is fed long time in one place. He
want to stay in that place, and the white man must drive Mobits
away. So Mobits come back to this village, and he is very fat.
That is the white man's way, and there is no understanding it. It
is a foolishness, a great foolishness."

"But thy sons?" I insisted. "Thy very strong sons and thine old-
age hunger?"

"There was Moklan," Ebbits began.

"A strong man," interrupted the mother. "He could dip paddle all
of a day and night and never stop for the need of rest. He was
wise in the way of the salmon and in the way of the water. He was
very wise."

"There was Moklan," Ebbits repeated, ignoring the interruption.
"In the spring, he went down the Yukon with the young men to trade
at Cambell Fort. There is a post there, filled with the goods of
the white man, and a trader whose name is Jones. Likewise is there
a white man's medicine man, what you call missionary. Also is
there bad water at Cambell Fort, where the Yukon goes slim like a
maiden, and the water is fast, and the currents rush this way and
that and come together, and there are whirls and sucks, and always
are the currents changing and the face of the water changing, so at
any two times it is never the same. Moklan is my son, wherefore he
is brave man - "

"Was not my father brave man?" Zilla demanded.