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THE PRIZE BASKET

Lana, a slave girl, lay on the gently sloping roof of.
the chief’s lodge, from which she could not only look
down through the smoke hole and watch the huge
black iron kettle on the fire below, but could also see
everything that happened in Quasset, the Haida vil-
lage where she had lived ever since her capture many
months before.

Out in the cove in front of the long line of totem
poles, the big ship of the Hudson’s Bay Company lay
at anchor, its white sails flapping idly in the summer
breeze. For many days now it had lain there while the
Yetz Haada who lived upon it had come ashore each
day to work upon the new trading-post they were
building on top of the hill behind the village.

First, however, they had cut down the tall spruces
and cedars on the slope behind the village where now
only stumps and masses of brush remained of the
once beautiful forest. Some of the logs had been split

by the skilful Haidas; others had been hauled to the
112