The Indian girl bore her burden to the stove, where she knelt to lift the covering from the child's face. "Hey there! Look out!" ejaculated Fraser, retreating in alarm. "I never had no measles." But Chakawana went on cuddling the infant in a motherly fashion while Cherry reassured her guests. "Is that an Indian child?" asked Emerson, curiously, noting the little fellow's flushed fair skin. The kneeling girl turned upward a pair of tearful, defiant eyes, answering quickly: "Yes, him Aleut baby." "Him our little broder," came the deep voice of Constantine, who had entered unnoticed; and a moment later, in obedience to an order from Cherry, they bore their charge to their own quarters at the rear. CHAPTER IV IN WHICH SHE GIVES HEART TO A HOPELESS MAN "I dare say Kalvik is rather lively during the summer season," Emerson remarked to Cherry, later in the day. "Yes; the ships arrive in May, and the fish begin to run in July. After that nobody sleeps." She had come upon him staring dispiritedly at the fire, and his dejection softened her and drew out her womanly sympathy. She had renewed her efforts to cheer him up, seeking to stir him out of the gloom that imprisoned him. With the healthy optimism and exuberance of her normal youth she could not but deplore the mischance that had changed him into the sullen, silent brute he seemed. "It must be rather interesting," he observed, indifferently. "It is more than that; it is inspiring. Why, the story of the salmon is an epic in itself. You know they live a cycle of four years, no more, always returning to the waters of their nativity to die; and I have heard it said that during one of those four years they disappear, no one knows where, reappearing out of the mysterious depths of the sea as if at a signal. They come by the legion, in countless scores of thousands; and when once they have tasted the waters of their birth they never touch food again, never cease their onward rush until they become bruised and battered wrecks, drifting down from the spawning-beds. When the call of nature is answered and the spawn is laid they die. They never seek the salt sea again, but carpet the rivers with their bones. When they feel the homing impulse they come from the remotest depths, heading unerringly for the particular parent stream whence they originated. If sand-bars should block their course in dry seasons or obstacles intercept them, they will hurl themselves out of the water in an endeavor to get across. They may disregard a thousand rivers, one by one; but when they finally taste the sweet currents which flow from their birthplaces their whole nature changes, and even their physical features alter: they grow thin, and the head takes on the sinister curve of the preying bird." "I had no idea they acted that way," said Boyd. "You paint a vivid picture."