"We build a mound hut near the house, and put there the blankets and stores. Sometime they stay there for years, but no one would take from a cache. If one has plenty of wood by the seashore or in the forest, he may cord it and go his way and no one will touch it. A deer hangs on a tree where dogs may not reach it, but no stray hunter would slice even a piece. We are not thieves."
"It is a pity you could not send missionaries to the States, you Thlinkits, my boy," said Mr. Strong, who had come up in time to hear Kalitan's words. "I'm afraid white people are less honest."
"Teddy, do you know we are to have some hunting to-day, and that you'll get your first experience with a glacier."
"Hurrah," shouted Ted, dancing up and down in excitement.
"Tyee Klake says we can hunt toward the base of the glacier, and I shall try to go a little ways upon it and see how the land lies, or, rather, the ice. It is getting warmer, and, if it continues a few days, the snow will melt enough to let us go over to that island you are so anxious to see."
Ted's eyes shone, and the amount of breakfast he put away quite prepared him for his day's work, which, pleasant though it might be, certainly was hard work. The chief said they must seek the glacier first before the sun got hot, for it was blinding on the snow. So they set out soon after breakfast, leaving Chetwoof in charge of the camp, and with orders to catch enough fish for dinner.
"We'll be ready to eat them, heads and tails," said Ted, and his father added, laughingly:
"'Bible, bones, and hymn-book, too.'"
"What does that mean?" asked Ted, as Kalitan looked up inquiringly.
"Once a writer named Macaulay said he could make a rhyme for any word in the English language, and a man replied, 'You can't rhyme Timbuctoo.' But he answered without a pause: