"Not all," was the reply. "But you should hear some of them. They would laugh at this," and Natsatt pointed to the mouth-organ. "There are as many kinds of things upon which they make music as there are different animals in the woods. There is one bigger than this lodge, which can growl like a bear, roar like thunder, and warble like all the birds. There is hardly any sound it cannot make."
"It must be wonderful," Klitonda sighed. "The white man can do so many things, and you have seen them all. Klota used to tell me about them, but somehow I did not believe her. I thought she must have dreamed them."
"I have not seen all the strange things myself," Natsatt responded, "but I have listened to men who have. At first I did not believe all they said, but now I know that they spoke true."
So sitting there in that quiet lodge he poured into the ears of his eager listeners some of the marvels of the strange world beyond the eastern mountains. He told them of cities, where houses stood closer together than the trees of the thickest forest; of canoes as big as hills; of railroads, horses, carriages; of other lands beyond the great water, where people were as many as the snow flakes falling outside. He told about the Queen mother, of her battle ships, her soldiers, how she ruled such a large part of the world, and no one could conquer her.
To all this Klitonda listened with marked interest. But when Natsatt spoke about the Queen's navy and army his eyes glowed with an intense light.
"And is the Queen mother stronger than the Chilcats?" he asked. "Could she conquer them?"
"Bah! The Chilcats are only rabbits to her," was the contemptuous reply.
"And will her warriors come to help the Ayana drive back the Chilcats, and keep them beyond the Coast Range?" Klitonda eagerly questioned.
Natsatt looked thoughtfully at this worried chief for a while ere replying. He knew what changes would take place in this northern region if the white men came pouring in. Did he not know something of the history of the Indians in other parts of Canada; how step by step they were being forced from their ancestral hunting grounds, to find their game slaughtered by white men, and they themselves treated as babies, cooped up on reserves or falling a prey to the deadly fire-water. Should he tell Klitonda how the Indians in Eastern Canada, and in the United States had been treated by the white men until they had risen in their fury in a vain attempt to drive the invaders back, and of the fearful horrors which followed the bloody battles which had been fought? How could he relate such things to this confiding chief? What would be the use?
"Do you wish the white men to help you against the Chilcats?" he asked.