'
This foreshadowing of the Messiah's coming brought a hoarse howl
from the Sticks as they leaped to their feet. Mackenzie slipped
the thumbs of his mittens and waited. There was a clamor for the
'Fox,' not to be stilled till one of the young men stepped
forward to speak.
'Brothers! The Shaman has spoken wisely. The Wolves have taken
our women, and our men are childless. We are grown to a handful.
The Wolves have taken our warm furs and given for them evil
spirits which dwell in bottles, and clothes which come not from
the beaver or the lynx, but are made from the grass.
And they are not warm, and our men die of strange sicknesses. I,
the Fox, have taken no woman to wife; and why? Twice have the
maidens which pleased me gone to the camps of the Wolf. Even now
have I laid by skins of the beaver, of the moose, of the cariboo,
that I might win favor in the eyes of Thling-Tinneh, that I might
marry Zarinska, his daughter. Even now are her snow-shoes bound
to her feet, ready to break trail for the dogs of the Wolf. Nor
do I speak for myself alone.
As I have done, so has the Bear. He, too, had fain been the
father of her children, and many skins has he cured thereto.
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