16 THE BIG CANOE

through it safely once; we can do it again. We shall
soon be out on the other side if we paddle straight
ahead. Let us hurry so that we shall have no time to
think about it.”

“Wait!” Kilsa held back the canoe with her paddle,
as she spoke. “Let us look just once more at the hid-
den island. We shall never see it again. It is some-
thing to remember, to tell about, when we are back in
our village.”

For a few moments they sat staring at the island, at
the hissing steam, at the noisy puffin birds, at the gray
wall of fog that surrounded the rocky cone, yet al-
lowed the sunshine to shine through upon the hatchery
and the near-by waters.

“It is very wonderful.” Kilsa dipped her paddle
into the water. “I can hardly believe it is real, though
I can see it with my own eyes. | shall never forget
Ms

“Nor I,” said Kahala. “It seems as if we must have
been dreaming, yet it is not so, for the canoe is full
of puffin beaks.”

Swiftly the canoe sped through the fog bank,
through the eerie silence, through the still waters. The
clamor of the puffin birds grew fainter and died away.
Before they realized what had happened, they were
out upon the sunlit sea again. The sail filled; the
fog bank was left behind. Day and night the canoe
sped southward toward the islands of the Haidas while
either Kilsa or Kahala watched beside the ragged