His words were accompanied by the Kryptok sign of blood-brotherhood reserved for members of the clan. Were I to divulge it here I should some day feel the thrust of Makuik's salmon-spear between my shoulder blades. It was a dramatic feature of Kryptok ritual that a sin against blood brotherhood may only be washed out by the blood of the offending brother.
But though I realized the closeness of the tie which bound me to this furry friend, though every fibre of my being cried out to accept the gift which he offered so gladly, a gift which meant warmth, happiness, love!—knowing all this, I was firm in my refusal.
In the face of a temptation, the greatest perhaps of my life, I resisted, I fought, I struggled.
My reasons were many and complicated. If they were right or not I do not know, but they seemed so at the time.
To begin with I knew in my heart that the beginning of close clan relations with these magnificent Klinkas meant the end of the Traprock Expedition! That we should ever again return to civilization was absolutely unthinkable. Here, in this winter solitude, I saw the first glimmerings of the truth over which the scientific world has so long puzzled. Here was the answer to the old, old, question, "Why do explorers leave home?" Why have so many never returned?
They have been absorbed by, and eventually into, one of these magnificent tribes. They have disappeared, or if they have found their way back to civilization, having proved failures in their new environment, they are tongue-tied, evasive, ashamed.
If I accepted Makuik's hospitality, in full, I saw another inevitable result. He would eventually have to die at my hands. There is room in a small nomadic tribe for but one leader, one "Kalok" or "Strong man." This is the ancient law of evolution. Bound as I was to Makuik I hesitated to take the first step which spelt his doom.
THE BATTLE ON THE BRINK
Students of the text of this volume will recall that a distinct rivalry existed between two of the principal characters, Sausalito and Ikik. The author makes what to us seems a delicate distinction regarding the object of this rivalry. "It was," he says, "not so much me as my love." There is something almost astral in this subdivision. Be that as it may, a strong feeling of competition existed between the two ladies which vented itself in frequent passages between them similar to that illustrated.
In this case the struggle started, as usual, in the most friendly manner, its object being the possession of a stub of candle, the last of the great dip presented to Ikik by Dr. Traprock. Developing, as such things do, from playful wrestling to rough-house, it was not long before the Klinka maiden found that she was struggling for her life. Sausalito's experience in catch-as-catch-can work, gained up and down the Barbary coast, was an equal match for the supple strength of her adversary and there is little doubt that the result would have been fatal to one or both participants had it not been for the timely intervention of Makuik who, seeing how things were going and fearing possible damage to one of his favorite wives, kicked over the icy stage upon which the drama was being enacted, at the same instant throwing the carcass of a bull-seal where it would intercept the fall of the contestants. Had it not been for the skill of Makuik in throwing the bull we can well imagine what would have happened. The animal weighed 220 poks or "meals," that is, approximately 2200 lbs., a "meal" being reckoned as 10 lbs. of any form of food-supply.
After the fall described above a temporary truce was patched up but the feeling of rivalry remained acute. As the philosophical author observes, "Being in love with two women is one thing: being loved by them is another."
