THE ANCIENT ONE

41

evil thing. There, the people live in ice houses and
drive dogs hitched to sledges, the whole year round.
And there, in a huge ice cave under a high cliff on the
shore, you will find the Ancient Ones—animals so
strange that you will be terrified when you look upon
them. They are so large that only Kahtow, the whale,
can be compared with them. In that cave you will
come to the end of your search; you will find the
animal for which you have been looking so long—
the animal no Haida or Tlingit or Tsimshian has ever
seen.”

So great was my excitement that I woke, the words
of the seal still sounding in my ears. Daylight had not
yet come and the waters were still dark, but such
faith did I have in my dream that I leaped into my
canoe and paddled swiftly northward, determined
to find the Ancient Ones of which the seal had spoken.
Never once, through all the dangers and hardships
that followed, did I doubt the truth of my dream. I
knew that the cave of the Ancient Ones was some-
where in that far frozen land of which the seal had
spoken.

Wonderful sights did I see as I went along: rivers
of ice moving slowly down from high mountain
ranges to fall with a noise of thunder into the sea;
tremendous peaks of ice moving slowly through the
water; fire-mountains belching smoke and ashes and
flames high into the air; giant bears, so huge, so fe-
rocious, that our bears are mere cubs in comparison;