"'Choose, oh! you ignorant tribes-people,' commanded the Great
Tyee. 'The wise men of our coast have said that the girl-child who
will some day bear children of her own will also bring abundance of
salmon at her birth; but the boy-child brings to you but himself.'

"'Let the salmon go,' shouted the people, 'but give us a future
Great Tyee. Give us the boy-child.'

"And when the child was born it was a boy.

"'Evil will fall upon you,' wailed the Great Tyee. 'You have
despised a mother-woman. You will suffer evil and starvation and
hunger and poverty, oh! foolish tribes-people. Did you not know
how great a girl-child is?'

"That spring, people from a score of tribes came up to the Fraser
for the salmon-run. They came great distances--from the mountains,
the lakes, the far-off dry lands, but not one fish entered the vast
rivers of the Pacific Coast. The people had made their choice.
They had forgotten the honor that a mother-child would have brought
them. They were bereft of their food. They were stricken with
poverty. Through the long winter that followed they endured
hunger and starvation. Since then our tribe has always welcomed
girl-children--we want no more lost runs."

The klootchman lifted her arms from her paddle as she concluded;
her eyes left the irregular outline of the violet mountains. She
had come back to this year of grace--her Legend Land had vanished.