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  In
  The
  Time
  That
  Was

  Dedicated
  to
  _Ah-Koo_

  Done into English
  by
  J. Frederic Thorne
  (_Kitchakahaech_)

  Illustrated
  by
  Judson T. Sergeant
  (_To-u-sucka_)

  Seattle,
  Washington,
  U. S. A.

  BEING THE FIRST
  volume _of_ a series
  of Legends _of_ the tribe
  of Alaskan Indians
  known as the Chilkats--_of_
  the Klingats
  _As told by Zachook the "Bear"
  to Kitchakahaech the "Raven"_

[Illustration]




_In the Time That Was_

"And There Was Light."


Zachook of the Chilkats told me these tales of The Time That Was.
But before the telling, he of the Northland and I of the Southland
had travelled many a mile with dog-team, snowshoes, and canoe.

If the stories suffer in the telling, as suffer they must afar from
that wondrous Alaskan background of mountain and forest, glacier
and river, wrenched from the setting of campfires and trail, and
divorced from the soft gutturals and halting throat notes in which
they have been handed down from generation to generation of Chilkat
and Chilkoot, blame not Zachook, who told them to me, and forbear
to blame me who tell them to you as best I may in this stiff
English tongue. They were many months in the telling and many weary
miles have I had to carry them in my memory pack.

       *       *       *       *       *

I had lost count of the hours, lost count of the days that at best
are marked by little change between darkness and dawn in the
Northland winter, until I knew not how long I had lain there in my
blanket of snow, waiting for the lingering feet of that dawdler,
Death, to put an end to my sufferings.

Some hours, or days, or years before I had been pushing along the
trail to the coast, thinking little where I placed my feet and much
of the eating that lay at Dalton Post House; and of other things
thousands of miles from this bleak waste, where men exist in the
hope of ultimate living, with kaleidoscope death by their side;
other things that had to do with women's faces, bills of fare from
which bacon and beans were rigidly excluded, and comforts of the
flesh that some day I again might enjoy.

Then, as if to mock me, teach me the folly of allowing even my
thoughts to wander from her cold face, the Northland meted swift
punishment. The packed snow of the trail beneath my feet gave way,
there was a sharp click of steel meeting steel, and a shooting pain
that ran from heel to head. For a moment I was sick and giddy from
the shock and sudden pain, then, loosening the pack from my
shoulders, fell to digging the snow with my mittened hands away
from what, even before I uncovered it, I knew to be a bear trap
that had bitten deep into my ankle and held it in vise clutch.
Roundly I cursed at the worse than fool who had set bear trap in
man trail, as I tore and tugged to free myself. As well might I
have tried to wrench apart the jaws of its intended victim.

Weakened at last by my efforts and the excruciating pain I lay back
upon the snow. A short rest, and again I pulled feebly at the steel
teeth, until my hands were bleeding and my brain swirling.

How long I struggled blindly, viciously, like a trapped beaver, I
do not know, though I have an indistinct memory of reaching for my
knife to emulate his sometime method of escape. But with the first
flakes of falling snow came a delicious, contentful langour,
deadening the pain, soothing the weariness of my muscles, calming
the tempest of my thoughts and fears, and lulling me gently to
sleep to the music of an old song crooned by the breeze among the
trees.

When I awoke it was with that queer feeling of foreign surroundings
we sometimes experience, and the snow, the forest, the pain in my
leg, my own being, were as strange as the crackling fire, the warm
blanket that wrapped me, and the Indian who bent over me smiling
into my half opened eyes.

So were our trails joined and made one; Zachook of the Northland,
and I of the Southland, by him later called Kitchakahaech, because
my tongue moved as moved our feet on the trail, unceasingly. And
because of this same love of speech in me, and the limp I bore for
memory of the bear trap, for these and possibly other reasons, and
that a man must have a family to bear his sins, of the Raven was I
christened by Zachook, the Bear, and to the family of the Raven was
I joined.

Orator among his people though he was, Zachook was no spendthrift
of speech. But surly he never was; his silence was a pleasant
silence, a companionable interchange of unspoken thoughts. Nor did
he need words as I needed them, his eyes, his hands, his wordless
lips could convey whole volumes of meaning, with lights and shades
beyond the power that prisons thought. Not often did he speak at
length, even to me, unless, as it came to be, he was moved by some
hap or mishap of camp or trail to tell of the doings of that arch
rascal, Yaeethl, the raven, God, Bird, and Scamp. And when, sitting
over the fire, or with steering paddle in hand, he did open the
gates that lead to the land of legend, he seemed but to listen and
repeat the words of Kahn, the fire spirit, who stands between the
Northland and death, or of Klingat-on-ootke, God of the Waters,
whose words seemed to glisten on the dripping paddle.

So it was upon an evening in the time when we had come to be as
sons of the same mother, when we shared pack and blanket and grub
alike, and were known, each to the other, for the men we were. We
had finished our supper of salmon baked in the coals, crisply fried
young grouse and the omnipresent sourdough bread, and with the
content that comes of well filled stomachs were seated with the
fire between us, Zachook studying the glowing embers, I with that
friend of solitude, my pipe, murmuring peacefully in response to my
puffing.

As usual, I had been talking, and my words had run upon the trail
of the raven, whose hoarse call floated up to us from the river.
Idly I had spoken, and disparagingly, until Zachook half smilingly,
half earnestly quoted:

"He who fires in the air without aim may hit a friend."

And as I relapsed into silence added: "It is time, Kitchakahaech,
that you heard of the head of your family, this same Yaeethl, the
raven. Then will you have other words for him, though, when you
have heard, it will be for you to speak them as a friend speaks or
as an enemy. Of both has Yaeethl many."

I accepted the rebuke in silence, for Zachook's trail was longer
then mine by many years, and he had seen and done things which were
yet as thoughts with me.

For the time of the smoking and refilling of my pipe Zachook was
silent, then with eyes gazing deep into the fire, began:

     "Before there was a North or South, when Time was not,
     Klingatona-Kla, the Earth Mother, was blind, and all the world
     was dark. No man had seen the sun, moon, or stars, for they
     were kept hidden by Yakootsekaya-ka, the Wise Man. Locked in a
     great chest were they, in a chest that stood in the corner of
     the lodge of the Wise Man, in Tskekowani, the place that
     always was and ever will be. Carefully were they guarded, many
     locks had the chest, curious, secret locks, beyond the fingers
     of a thief. To outwit the cunning of Yaeethl were the locks
     made. Yaeethl the God, Yaeethl the Raven, Yaeethl the Great
     Thief, of whom the Wise Man was most afraid.

     "The Earth Mother needed light that her eyes might be opened,
     that she might bear children and escape the disgrace of her
     barrenness. To Yaeethl the Clever, Yaeethl the Cunning, went
     Klingatona-Kla, weeping, and of the Raven begged aid. And
     Yaeethl took pity on her and promised that she should have
     Kayah, the Light, to father her children.

     "Many times had Yaeethl, because of his promise, tried to
     steal the Worlds of Light, and as many times had he failed.
     But with each attempt his desire grew, grew until it filled
     his belly and his brain.

     "Was he not Yaeethl, the Great White Raven, the Father of
     Thieves? What if the Wise Man put new and heavier locks upon
     the chest after each attempt? Were locks greater than the
     cunning of the Raven?

     "Now Yakootsekaya-ka, the Wise Man, and his wife had a
     daughter. Of their marriage was she, a young girl, beautiful
     and good. No man had ever seen her face. On no one, god or
     man, had the eyes of the young girl ever rested, save only her
     father and mother, the Wise Ones. Ye-see-et, a virgin, was
     she.

     "Yaeethl, of his wisdom knowing that the weakness of men is
     the strength of children, that a babe may enter where a
     warrior may not cast his shadow, bethought him of this virgin,
     this daughter of Yakootsekaya-ka. As the thought and its
     children made camp in his brain Yaeethl spread wide his
     snow-white wings.

     [Illustration]

     "Thrice he circled high in air