The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1901-08-23
YOYOUK'S RAVENS,
BY GEORGE HARLOW CLARE.

eagle that was mounting slowly into
the blue sky.
The lad shook his head dlssentlngly.
He Is lazy thief, who robs honest
birds Of FISH," he replied "The wise
raven, Too-loo-ah, is the true chief"
Koyouk's opinion merlted consldera-
ton. An that knew and much more
Of the life ami habits Of Too-loo-ah
was familiar to this 16-year-old boy
of the lower Yukon AS little child
he had often listened while his mother
related folklore anecdotes Of its sa-
gacity and other less commendable at
tributes. He did not know that his
young knsmen in far-on Greenland,
halfway around the globe,-whose
very existence indeed, he did not sus-
pect,-were also entertained during
the long, dark winter night with sim
liar stories, nor that they, too, called
the black bird Too-loo-ah. But he had
heard that among the southeast Tin
kits an aristocratic clan proudly traced
their ancestry to the bird whose
quantity modelled efIigy adorns their
totempoles; and this fact was of es-
pecial interest to him because a
carved, weather-beaten figure of ra-
ven surmounted a painted pole planted
beside his grandfather's wooden tomb
on neighboring hilltop.
Among the hills behind the village
where Koyouk lived there is one Of
those peculiar geological formations,
On isolated finger or pillar of dark
colored rock, like a druidical monolith
on a cyclopean scale, which has with
stood the frost and storms Of untold
centuries. A similar column, although
of far greater size and altitude, stands
on the northwestern coast of Green
land, near Melville bay and others
exist elsewhere. From time immemo-
rial the top of the pillar has harbored
a pair of ravens. There successive
generations have reared their young,
secure from molestation.
Koyouk had acquired habit of re-
sorting thither. Many were the
pleasant hours he spent outstretched
on the thick, soft moss of an adjacent
slope, screened by the smoke of
smudge that kept off black flies and
mosquitoes while he watched the adult
birds Tapping to and fro above him.
Sometimes he espied one returning
from a foray, laden with salmon
filched from the village fish-racks
where the split fish were strung in
long, red rows, curing in the sun.
Koyouk's father, had he CHANGED to
discover the frivolous manner in
which his sons time was occupied,
would no doubt have quickly found
means of diverting his attention. But
no such thought detracted from the en-
joyment with which Koyouk marked
the joyful clamor of the young birds
in their lofty aerie while a distribu-
ton of the spoil was taking place.
The young naturalist was in his 18th
year when he first conceived the idea
of scaling the pillar. Formerly he had
been content to view its occupants
from a distance, but desire for more
intimate acquaintance now awoke in
him. He had, moreover. potent
reason for wishing to obtain one of
the fledgllngs.
Koyouk was one of those persons
who are gifted with wonderful com
prehension of and influence over ami
mails His father had given him one
of litter of pups, and ne had taught
it to perform a number of feats that
did great credit both to the teacher
and the CANNES intelligence. En-
couraged by this success, the boy
longed for an opportunity to apply q
similar course Of instruction to raw
en-. For, he reasoned. its superior
endowment, if carefully cultivated
could not fail to result in the ultimate
development of a feathered prodigy
Almost invariably, as he had noticed
the young were Matched before the
ice had left the Yukon and the ground
was bare of snow. He lurked persist
emily about the aerie in hope that dur
ing the period of their tuition in tai
use of wings one Of them might b,
chance fall into his hands. But tn,
vigilant parents, although so accus
toned to his presence that they usual
" paid no heed to him, seemed t
divine his new motive, and the
guarded their progeny with extraol
binary zeal. This evidence Of subtl
aiscernment, to which he ascribe
the birds incessant watcbfulness, il
-. ..,,~,+ 60, +boi, MIC Ion