NORTHERN INTERIOR OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

with Chalh’tas, which resulted in the latter accusing him of
the death of her two children, but lately deceased. Upon
this blows ensued, when the woman, falling on him, called
upon Atéte to help her kill him, under pain of being
herself done to death if she refused. Then they shame-
fully mutilated his remains, which they conveyed to the
mouth of a stream emptying on the opposite side of the
lake, and buried them in the sand.

Then, hiding his quiver among the rocks of the Stuart
River, near the water’s edge, they hastily fled to Fraser
Lake, where they declared that, after one of their usual
disputes, A’ke’tces had tried to put them to death, when
they had made off with his canoe, whereupon he had _ pur-
sued them in the water and gone beyond his depth. On
the ground of that story, canoes searched for days every
nook of the river, where only the missing man’s quiver
was found, until later on his mangled remains were acci-
dentally: unearthed, whereupon the anger of old Na’kweel
and of his son Chichanit knew no bounds.

Several years elapsed, when Atéte, who had been but an
unwilling accomplice in the murder, tired of her exile, and
resolved upon returning to her native land and telling the
whole truth. But as she neared Stuart Lake her return
was revealed to Chichanit, who sallied out and killed her
with his bow-point—a sort of spear affixed to one end of
his bow, a weapon quite common among the ancient
Carriers. Then, repenting of his act, committed just when
the woman endeavored to explain that she was innocent,
he decided to spare her surviving co-partner on condition
that she would come back and allow him to take her to

1. As the imagination of the natives must mix the marvellous or extra-
ordinary with the common and ordinary, the Indians do not fail to say that a
rainbow, one end of which plunged where the body had been buried, was
instrumental in causing its discovery.