Storms Fulfilling His Word. 3

Several families were sleeping in the huge but roughly-built
hunting-lodge. Beyond the promontory that protected them
the heavy ocean swell rolled past and broke occasionally on
some outlying sunken rocks with a sullen roar. A solitary
Zimshian was fishing at the harbour mouth, when he heard a
hissing sound as if one man was signalling another. Snatching
up a sharp mussel shell he cut away his long fishing line, and
with a few deft and silent strokes of his paddle took his canoe
in shadow, close under the rocks, and so reached his sleeping
relatives unobserved. He put his hand on the mouths of
several sleepers, and told his fears into their waking ears.
They in their turn waked the rest, and all glided into the
dark forest, taking what movables they could with them.
But one little old blind man was overlooked and forgotten.
He was roused and alarmed by the war-whoops of the Haidas
as they made a rush on the lodge, and knowing an empty
cedar-box, in which grease was kept, stood in the corner, with
great presence of mind he turned it over his head, crouched
down, and awaited the worst. Furious that they were dis-
appointed, the Haidas went round the lodge, smashing every-
thing, and knocked in the bottom of the grease-box without
discovering the old man. At last they moved off, and took
to their canoes. After listening carefully, and thinking his
enemies clean gone, he ventured out, and crept away to where
he thought his friends were hidden. But he heard most awful
cries, which soon ceased, and only a single voice reached his
ears. He told his friends, who then reconnoitred and found
a youth clinging, half-drowned, to some seaweed on the rocks.
They dragged him up, and finding who he was, intended to
kill him, but the Zimshians who saved him found he belonged
to the same crest brotherhood, and at great risk stood
between him and their angry fellow-Zimshians. In course of
time they handed him over to his father, a Haida chief, whom
they met on neutral ground. Some slaves were offered as a
ransom, but rejected. Thereupon a peace was made, which
lasted until the pale faces came and for ever rolled away the
red tide of war. Such, in brief, was the story, and the