THE WONDER-WORKER’S PIPE 201

shim’s pipe! If he could only obtain his freedom, he
would ask to be adopted into the tribe. Then he would
be a Haida. Teka could think of nothing in the world
that would make him happier than that.

The very next morning Kilko began to tease him
about the pipe.

“Have you found the pipe yet?” he asked, laugh-
ing loud. “Look, here comes Teka, the slave. Look
hard, for he will soon be a free man. He will soon find
the pipe; then he will no longer be a slave.”

Kilko was very cruel. He had found a new weapon
with which to tease the slave boy and he would not
stop using it. Soon others were teasing Teka about
the pipe, and before many days it was the joke of the
camp. Even the chief joked about it. “Have you found
my pipe yet, Teka?” he would ask smilingly when-
ever Teka approached. “Not yet,” Teka would reply,
hastening away.

Nevertheless he spent all of his spare moments
looking for it—under rocks and logs, in clear pools,
behind driftwood, and in the forest. Kilko and the
other boys often followed him and spied upon him.
They also threw rocks and sand and mud at him, shot
blunted arrows at him, splashed him with cold water,
pushed him off rocks into deep pools. They did not
dare to injure him, for slaves were valuable property
and they would have been punished if they had done
him real harm, but they could make his life unhappy,
and this they did.

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