"
"Na! Na!" the men cried. "Put the child out!" "Send him off to bed!" "He
is no man that he should talk to men and gray-beards!"
He waited calmly till the uproar died down.
"Thou hast a wife, Ugh-Gluk," he said, "and for her dost thou speak. And
thou, too, Massuk, a mother also, and for them dost thou speak. My
mother has no one, save me; wherefore I speak. As I say, though Bok be
dead because he hunted over-keenly, it is just that I, who am his son,
and that Ikeega, who is my mother and was his wife, should have meat in
plenty so long as there be meat in plenty in the tribe. I, Keesh, the
son of Bok, have spoken."
He sat down, his ears keenly alert to the flood of protest and
indignation his words had created.
"That a boy should speak in council!" old Ugh-Gluk was mumbling.
"Shall the babes in arms tell us men the things we shall do?" Massuk
demanded in a loud voice. "Am I a man that I should be made a mock by
every child that cries for meat?"
The anger boiled a white heat. They ordered him to bed, threatened that
he should have no meat at all, and promised him sore beatings for his
presumption. Keesh's eyes began to flash, and the blood to pound darkly
under his skin.
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