THE SILVER BRACELET 91 reasons of his own, might have found it wiser to re- main silent. Terrible indeed would be his punish- ment when the truth became known. As it happened, however, the white slave’s escape was not discovered until the council was over and the shamans adjourned to the prison. Then the head shaman, who happened to be a brother of the un- lucky guard, quickly announced that since there were no signs of the prisoner and the guard was positive that he had not escaped through the entrance hole, the evil spirits released from the bear’s body must have entered the house through the smoke hole and carried him away. There could be no other explana- tion of the matter. It was exactly the sort of thing the evil spirits were always ready and eager to do. Every one in the village was glad to believe the shaman. So sure were they that the medicine-man was right, and so very clever was the shaman, that no search was made for the prisoner. When the canoe was missed in the morning, that too was attributed to the work of the evil spirits, so that Maada was no longer worried. ; As the weeks and months passed, the chief’s daugh- ter often thought of the kind white man and wondered if he had reached the trading-post upon the Skeena River. Then, one day a year later, a vessel sailed into the bay in front of the village and the captain came ashore to bargain with the chief for the privilege of establishing a trading-post in the village. When the