94, THE BIG CANOE

wild barking of the village dogs. From deep within
the forest came the various sounds made by men who
worked upon the long canoes that would be taken to
the Nass River in the spring and exchanged for
olachen grease. There were the sounds of adze and
wedge, of saw and ax and hammer—those steel tools
obtained from the trader which had so quickly re-
placed the crude stone ones of the Haidas.

Even as he listened, the throb of the drums and
the wails of the medicine-men came to an end. The
barking of the dogs stopped suddenly and a pleasant
silence settled over the forest so that Kagan could
hear the songs of the birds and the cries of the gulls
over the cove.

“If I could only make such sweet sounds myself,”
Kagan mused wistfully; “if I could only make such
music as the birds make, I should be content, even
though I am a cripple and can never dance or sing
with the others, nor be a shaman and beat upon one
of the ceremonial drums. Never can I, a cripple, wear a
dance mask and take part in the ceremony of the sacred
swansdown, scattering it over our visitors to cement
friendship and end hatred and strife!

Grieving, listening to the bird music as he lay there
motionless beneath the cedars, Kagan finally went to
sleep and dreamed a strange dream: a dream of music
and dancing and the beautiful ceremony of the sacred
swansdown; a dream in which his wildest longings
were fulfilled, only to be followed by such pain and