"The only shadow on the joy of it all was war, for the tribe of the
great Tyee was at war with the Upper Coast Indians, those who lived
north, near what is named by the Paleface as the port of Prince
Rupert. Giant war-canoes slipped along the entire coast, war
parties paddled up and down, war-songs broke the silences of the
nights, hatred, vengeance, strife, horror festered everywhere like
sores on the surface of the earth. But the great Tyee, after
warring for weeks, turned and laughed at the battle and the
bloodshed, for he had been victor in every encounter, and he could
well afford to leave the strife for a brief week and feast in his
daughters' honor, nor permit any mere enemy to come between him and
the traditions of his race and household. So he turned insultingly
deaf ears to their war-cries; he ignored with arrogant indifference
their paddle-dips that encroached within his own coast waters, and
he prepared, as a great Tyee should, to royally entertain his
tribesmen in honor of his daughters.

"But seven suns before the great feast these two maidens came before
him, hand clasped in hand.

"'Oh! our father,' they said, 'may we speak?'

"'Speak, my daughters, my girls with the eyes of April, the hearts
of June'" (early spring and early summer would be the more accurate
Indian phrasing).

"'Some day, oh! our father, we may mother a man-child, who may grow
to be just such a powerful Tyee as you are, and for this honor that
may some day be ours we have come to crave a favor of you--you, Oh!