"The Squamish say that in a gigantic crevice half-way to the crest
of Mount Baker may yet be seen the outlines of an enormous canoe,
but I have never seen it myself."

He ceased speaking with that far-off cadence in his voice with which
he always ended a legend, and for a long time we both sat in silence
listening to the rains that were still beating against the window.





THE SEA-SERPENT


There is one vice that is absolutely unknown to the red man; he
was born without it, and amongst all the deplorable things he
has learned from the white races, this, at least, he has never
acquired. That is the vice of avarice. That the Indian looks
upon greed of gain, miserliness, avariciousness, and wealth
accumulated above the head of his poorer neighbor as one of the
lowest degradations he can fall to is perhaps more aptly illustrated
than anything I could quote to demonstrate his horror of what
he calls "the white man's unkindness." In a very wide and
varied experience with many tribes, I have yet to find even one
instance of avarice, and I have encountered but one single case of a
"stingy Indian," and this man was so marked amongst his fellows that
at mention of his name his tribes-people jeered and would remark
contemptuously that he was like a white man--hated to share his