tea and a taste of muck-a-muck that otherwise I should eat in
solitude.

"No," I admitted, I had not had that pleasure, for I did not know
the uncertain waters of English Bay sufficiently well to venture
about its headlands in my frail canoe.

"Some day, perhaps next summer, I'll take you there in a sail-boat,
and show you the big rock at the south-west of the Point. It is a
strange rock; we Indian people call it Homolsom."

"What an odd name!" I commented. "Is it a Squamish word?--it does
not sound to me like one."

"It is not altogether Squamish, but half Fraser River language. The
Point was the dividing-line between the grounds and waters of the
two tribes; so they agreed to make the name 'Homolsom' from the two
languages."

I suggested more tea, and, as he sipped it, he told me the legend
that few of the younger Indians know. That he believes the story
himself is beyond question, for many times he admitted having tested
the virtues of this rock, and it had never once failed him. All
people that have to do with water-craft are superstitious about
some things, and I freely acknowledge that times innumerable I
have "whistled up" a wind when dead calm threatened, or stuck
a jack-knife in the mast, and afterwards watched with great
contentment the idle sail fill, and the canoe pull out to a light
breeze. So, perhaps, I am prejudiced in favor of this legend of
Homolsom Rock, for it strikes a very responsive chord in that