his long term of solitude to end. One comfort alone was his--he
was enduring the disaster, fighting the evil, that his tribe might
go unscathed, that his people be saved from calamity. Slowly,
laboriously the tenth year dawned; day by day it dragged its long
weeks across his waiting heart, for Nature had not yet given the
sign that his long probation was over.

"Then, one hot summer day, the Thunder-bird came crashing through the
mountains about him. Up from the arms of the Pacific rolled the
storm-cloud, and the Thunder-bird, with its eyes of flashing light,
beat its huge vibrating wings on crag and canyon.

"Up-stream, a tall shaft of granite rears its needle-like length. It
is named 'Thunder Rock,' and wise men of the Paleface people say it
is rich in ore--copper, silver, and gold. At the base of this shaft
the Squamish chief crouched when the storm-cloud broke and bellowed
through the ranges, and on its summit the Thunder-bird perched, its
gigantic wings threshing the air into booming sounds, into splitting
terrors, like the crash of a giant cedar hurtling down the mountain-side.

"But when the beating of those black pinions ceased and the echo of
their thunder-waves died down the depths of the canyon, the Squamish
chief arose as a new man. The shadow on his soul had lifted, the
fears of evil were cowed and conquered. In his brain, his blood,
his veins, his sinews, he felt that the poison of melancholy dwelt
no more. He had redeemed his fault of fathering twin children; he
had fulfilled the demands of the law of his tribe.

"As he heard the last beat of the Thunder-bird's wings dying slowly,
faintly, faintly, among the crags, he knew that the bird,