It was a gathering of the tribes, like
unto none in all the past, and a thousand miles of coast made up the
tally. They were all strange Indians, with wives and chattels and
dogs. She rubbed shoulders with Juneau and Wrangel men, and was
jostled by wild-eyed Sticks from over the Passes, fierce Chilcats, and
Queen Charlotte Islanders. And the looks they cast upon her were black
and frowning, save--and far worse--where the merrier souls leered
patronizingly into her face and chuckled unmentionable things.
She was not frightened by this insolence, but angered; for it hurt her,
and embittered the pleasurable home-coming. Yet she quickly grasped
the significance of it: the old patriarchal status of her father's time
had passed away, and civilization, in a scorching blast, had swept down
upon this people in a day. Glancing under the raised flaps of a tent,
she saw haggard-faced bucks squatting in a circle on the floor. By the
door a heap of broken bottles advertised the vigils of the night. A
white man, low of visage and shrewd, was dealing cards about, and gold
and silver coins leaped into heaping bets upon the blanket board. A
few steps farther on she heard the cluttering whirl of a wheel of
fortune, and saw the Indians, men and women, chancing eagerly their
sweat-earned wages for the gaudy prizes of the game. And from tepee
and lodge rose the cracked and crazy strains of cheap music-boxes.
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