A YUROK’S REVENGE. 61 
and quiver, and was never visible during daylight hours, coming to the post 
only after nightfall. The Indians always dawdle around a frontier store in 
large numbers by day, but soon after the evening dusk comes on they all 
disappear in their cabins; and it was only when they were all away that 
this strange Indian would enter cautiously, and glance quickly around to 
see that no other Indian was present. Then he would go up to the counter, 
set down his bow within easy clutching distance, and purchase the smallest 
quantity of crackers the trader would sell, and occasionally also as much 
more of tobacco, matches, or some other trifling article. After a few half- 
whispered words, he would slink quietly out and be seen no more until the 
following evening. He never missed an evening, but always made his 
appearance in the same manner, went through the same maneuvers, and 
always bought a half-pound of crackers, never over a pound. The mer- 
chant grew uneasy, but he had learned by bitter experience the folly of 
meddling in Indian feuds, and he said nothing, only watched. Month after 
month passed away, and still this inscrutable Indian continued to come 
every evening, slipped softly into the store, carefully closed the door 
behind him, made his little purchases, then went away. He grew gaunt 
and haggard, and on his drawn cheeks he could now hardly force a smile 
as he greeted the trader; but not one word did he ever breathe of his secret 
purposes. 
He was the avenger of his murdered brother, waiting and watching for 
the life which he had sworn by his god to offer to the horrid Uma. Night 
after night he was lying beside a certain brook where he awaited the slayer. 
Week after week, month after month passed on, until five moons had waxed 
and waned; the shrilling rains and the frosts and the snows of winter came 
and went, and beat upon his shriveled body; the moaning winds shook his 
unshortened locks and whistled through his rotting blanket; the great fern- 
slopes of the mountains faded from green to golden, to wine-color, to russet, 
to tawny, buried their ugliness under the winding-sheet of the snow, then 
lived again in the tender green of spring, and still his wasting eyes glared 
out through the thicket, and still the victim came not. Five months he 
waited. But at last, one morning in the soft early spring, at daybreak, he 
beholds him for whom he is-waiting. He comes down a winding pathway 
