180 THE BIG CANOE

he had shaken and pawed the skins. Out flew the
feathers. Into the air they rose, fanned by the draft
that always swirled down through the smoke hole!
Whuff! Whuff! Slik sneezed as the feathers tickled
his nose and stuck in his throat. Not till then had
Yulan noticed that the puppy was in the lodge—not
until the room was filled with feathers, drifting down
over the ledges, into the food, into the fire. Then it
was too late.

For this prank of Slik’s, Yulan had been pun-
ished. He had been obliged to pick up the feathers,
to sew up the torn furs, and make the feather-bed as
good as before. It had been a long task and a dis-
agreeable one. Before it was finished, Yulan had
dreamed of feathers flying like snowflakes through
the air until he was smothered by them.

Suddenly Yulan’s thoughts were taken off his
troubles by the shrill screaming of the gulls. Some-
thing had frightened them. Yulan lifted his head
carefully and looked along the beach within the
cove. There was no moving object there, not even a
dog. From the end of the sand-spit on which he was
hidden, however, he could look not only into the
cove but far up the shore of the island beyond the
headland; far up a long sandy beach where the young
people always dug clams at low tide. Along this
shore came a long line of canoes filled with armed
warriors. He could see clearly their war gorgets,
helmets, and thick war coats of reeds or hides.