THE PIPES OF VICTORY 95

humiliation that he woke, sobbing, to find Quahl the
Carver standing by his side, looking down at him
with deep concern in his kindly old eyes.

Kagan dried his tears hastily, ashamed to be caught
crying. Kagan the cripple was brave; patient and
good-natured and cheerful he was also, in spite of
his deformity and the taunts and tricks of the other
children. Throughout the years he had uncomplain-
ingly performed all the tasks allotted to him; he had
borne heroically the pain caused by his crippled leg.
And he had never cried out or wept, no matter what
his playmates did to tease and torment him, so that
now he was ashamed of the tears which Quahl must
have seen, the tears he had shed while he was dream-
ing.

“TI was dreaming,” he explained quickly. “In my
dream I wept, for it was an evil dream.”

“Many times have I wept in my sleep,” Quahl
assured him. “Indeed, many men have done that.
It is nothing to be ashamed of. Long have I watched
you, Kagan, and I have never seen you weep before,
no matter how great your pain or sorrow. The ways
of dreams are very strange. Sometimes I think the
spirit people or Raven himself really whisper in our
ears while we sleep, telling us things we could never
find out in any other way. How else, think you,
should I have known about the Ancient Ones in the
far North, had not the seal and the raven directed
me, in dreams, where to go? There is much truth