STORIES 471

swan into the log and wrungits neck. To his surprise another tail at once
appeared in the aperture, and he was able to treat the second bird in the
same manner. A third and a fourth followed in close succession. Four
swans must have been roosting on the log, and each had unsuspiciously
moved up to take the position at the end when it was vacated. The boys
ate the flesh raw, and the eldest sewed the four skins together with swan
sinew to make a rude cloak for himself.

That day and the following night passed without incident, the log
drifting along out of sight of land. The next morning they caught four
more swans, in the same manner as on the preceding day, and with these
the eldest boy made a cloak for one of his companions. On the third and
fourth mornings four more swans appeared, providing clothing for the
remaining two boys.

That day they were roused by the crashing of their log against a rocky
shore. As they peered cautiously forth they saw that their craft was
bumping against a beach consisting of lumps of lava-like rock, ill-shaped
boulders, and small crags. At the same time they heard a sound as if
countless small particles were falling from a height, so the eldest boy
concluded that they must have reached the Land of Ashes, S‘gus‘t. Even
at that distant time it was well-known that the substance of wood burnt
in a fire is carried far across the ocean to S‘gis‘t, where it appears as rocks
_ having the original shape of the wood, but without its solidity. If this
were not the case, Bella Coola would soon be buried beneath the mass of
consumed firewood, whereas only a few ashes remain after a fire. The
eldest boy further knew that in this land lived an evil chief, Nuskiaxek,
who devoured the corpses of human beings drowned in the ocean. Accord-
ingly he warned his companions not to venture ashore, but one of them,
over-anxious to leave the log, jumped out, only to vanish from sight as
if he had passed through the rock to which he had leapt. This was indeed
the case, it having merely the shape of a crag with the consistency of
ashes.

The three survivors, even more terrified than before, continued to
cower within their log as it drifted down the coast and finally entered a
tiver where, during the night, it was caught in the salmon-weir of Nuski-
axek. When the latter visited his trap in the morning he was amazed at
the huge tree-trunk caught in it; it was so big that it had almost burst
. the weir, and was far too heavy for him to lift. He went to his house and
sent his slave, one of the prodigiously strong dwarfs who formerly lived
in the mountains to the east of Bella Coola, to attend to it. He tossed
the log ashore and it split, revealing the three boys. Back ran the slave
to his master to tell what had happened.

“Bring them here,” said Nuskiaxek.