178 THE BIG CANOE

groaned aloud when he smelled the meat and fish
roasting over the great fire in the guest house. He was
very hungry, for he had had no food save a few dried
berries since the previous afternoon when he had run
away, howling with fright, to a hiding-place in the
forest. Even the dogs, he thought regretfully, would
fare better at the feast than he, who must remain an
outcast until his father’s anger had subsided.

And his father had been very angry indeed because
Yulan had dared, when his parents were away, to
lift the lid of the shaman’s sacred chest and take from
it many of his father’s most treasured possessions;
because he had dared to tie on the shaman’s apron
with its dangling charms, the necklace of puffin
beaks, and the queer tall shaman’s hat of painted
wood; because he had taken his father’s rattle and
spirit-catcher and the smallest ceremonial drum,
which he coveted above all things, and had paraded
for a few short moments solemnly back and forth
along the upper platform, blissfully ignorant of his
comical appearance and unmindful of the danger
of discovery.

He was putting the things back into the chest when
his father, the shaman, returned. Even then, all would
have gone well had he not dropped the tall wooden
hat, which rolled off the first ledge and across the
second, and dropped to the lower level where it broke
in two and lay, ruined, before his father’s horrified
eyes. Then Yulan had run out of the lodge, out