Naynokahsee:
I made quite much money. Naynokahsee is oodyamin and ahmoo-seen-ze-bah-qun. I put white stone over Penaycee, I will put white wool on my sister who lives. I bring her wood oil in bottle. I bring her lardstick too. I hope my words are spelled right
—Shinguakonse.
When they came back down the river laden with much booty, Marvin had learned a number of things, including the astonishing fact that Keego belonged to Ojeeg.
“Shall we stop to see if your father is awake?”
“No. Let him sit by graves and think. All chiefs of Crane are there. They not like him to drink. Bien, the Bear will show me how to cure him.”
Marvin reflected. When he got round to buying an island full of dead chiefs it would be like requesting the trustees of the Grove Street cemetery to sell him the bones of New Haven worthies to make calcium carbide with. Ojeeg was likely to prove as refractory as zirconium.
At the same time Ojeeg might prefer ethyl alcohol to all the dead chiefs in heathendom. Ethyl can persuade the owner of graves that he is a greater man than any of his ancestors. Nothing like ethyl to put a rosy face on facts, and it is the approved business means of eliminating backward races decently.
The chief difficulty was the boy. The boy was anxious to cure his father, and expected his new friend to help. The boy had even seemed to be expecting him. How could this be? Why had the boy addressed him as the Bear?