60 THE BIG CANOE

ing to him. This strange object anchored in the little
cove, which the others thought was a supernatural
being, seemed to him to be merely a huge canoe with
sails that hung at queer angles—white sails which
were quite different from the twin sails of cedar
matting used by the Haidas.

All through two long nights and one endless day
Weah waited impatiently in his father’s house for
the noisy ceremonies to cease. He was eager to look
once more upon the visitor. At dawn on the second
morning, he slipped unnoticed out through the
entrance hole, and hurried along the shore in a driving
rain until he came to a rocky point below the head-
land from which he could look out over the water.

As the hours passed, he moved from rock to rock,
seeking new hiding-places along the shore, where he
might study the strange object that had frightened his
people so. At last he was convinced that it was a huge
canoe, just as he had suspected, and that the so-called
wings were sails. He was so interested in his study
of these strange sails which hung in a maze of ropes
high above the deck of this new kind of canoe, that
he quite forgot to hide, and moved away from the
big rock behind which he had been crouching.

Because of the heavy rain, all the crew on board
the schooner were below decks, working at odd jobs
and waiting for the downpour to cease. Even the
watch kept under cover as much as possible, so that
Weah saw no one on board the vessel until the cap-