THE HIDDEN ISLAND 7

slave, promised to care for their crippled father,
Sagano, while they were gone.

“We shall find the hidden island, I feel sure,”
Kahala declared, as the two skilful paddlers sent the
canoe leaping over the waters of the cove. Out in the
straits the single sail they had made of the two ragged
ones filled with a breeze from the south, and they
sped swiftly northward.

Neither Kahala nor Kilsa were afraid when at last
they reached the rougher waters of the open ocean.
All Haidas spent much of their lives in their long
graceful canoes and often stayed away from their vil-
lages for days at a time when they were hunting seal
or otter. So now, when darkness came, the two voyag-
ers furled their mended sail and curled up in the
bottom of the canoe, letting it drift upon the waves
while they slept soundly until dawn.

All the following day they sailed northward, but
not a seal or an otter did they see anywhere upon the
waters. Once they were chased for a while by a sea-
lion; once they were followed for a short distance
by a shark, but he, too, finally gave up the chase and
they were left alone upon the vast expanse of sunlit
waters.

“Tt is a big place, this ocean,” Kilsa said, when the
third day had passed as fruitlessly as the others. “‘So
far we have seen only whales and sharks and sea-
lions. Do you suppose there can be anything so small
as a seal or otter here in these waters with the other