THE QUEST

[Illustration: BRUSHING THE HEMLOCK BOUGHS, HE WALKED STEALTHILY]

Eut-le-ten started with no arms but his courage, to face the dread
witch who had spirited away the children. The trail lay long, unknown
and untrodden, save by the timber wolf, panther and black bear. It
was feared by the Indians for dangers most dreadful--the greatest
of all the chehah E-ish-so-oolth. He broke through dense shalal,
fringing the green woods, making the shore line all but impenetrable.
Into the thick woods, under the silvery spruce, brushing the hemlock
boughs he walked stealthily. Salmon berry thickets impeded his
progress, scratched his round limbs with the thorns on their canes.
He passed white helebore, so tall and so handsome. He saw how the
black bear had fed on swamp lily, tramping the glossy leaves into the
black mud. He spurned the devil's club with berries so red and with
poisonous thorns on stem and on leaf. Such was the trail as it led
him far inland, inland away from his home by the sea. At last by a
cool stream, the path lay before him. Hard by the stream a lodge was
erected, a house of such size the boy stood dumbfounded, and he knew
that this must be the dwelling of the children's dread captor.

Night time had come, the shadows had fallen and Eut-le-ten was tired
with the long weary trail. Should he proceed or wait until morning?
He climbed a tree which grew by the water, and hid in the branches
to keep vigil, there to crave strength from the Saghalie spirit, the
Hyas Tyee who dwells in the heavens, to grant him the strength, the
wisdom, the courage to kill the dread witch. The night was long and
the vigil lone, soundless except for the night hawk on wing, or the
howl of the wolf in the quest of the red deer, or the splash of the