THE HIDDEN ISLAND 5

Kilsa reminded him. “No longer are we enemies.
Our tribes have been at peace since the battle on the
mainland when the Niskas were so well punished—
the battle on the island in the lake whither all the
Niskas had fled. Again and again has our father told
us the story beside the evening fire.”

“No Niska will ever again be friend of mine,”
Kahala declared, his eyes flashing. “How can I forget
or forgive, with our father lying helpless there in his
lodge? What if the chief did make peace! Did the
chief lose his mother as we did? Was his father
cruelly wounded as ours was? You and I should have
been killed or taken captive also, had we not been in
the forest berrying. Think you that I shall ever for-
give the Niskas! Never, though all the swansdown
among the Haidas were scattered over them a hundred
times!”

“Tf we only had some new sails for our boat,”
Kilsa suggested, quickly changing the subject, “we
could go to sea like the others. Then, perhaps, we
could come home with a few skins of the otter or
seal which we could exchange for olachen grease and
food for our father. Oh, if we only had new sails for
our boat we—”

“We might go with our old ones,” Kahala inter-
rupted. “We can mend them so that they will hold the
wind. It is the time of good weather and there is
little danger of a storm. We can take some of the
smoked fish and water, and go hunting as the others