STORIES 473

follow his advice. She took the baby home, where she sponged him with
soft cedar-bark and looked after him as if he had been her own.

Within a few days he began to sit up and take an intelligent interest
in what was going on around him. This phenomenal growth continued,
so that when the salmon-child was only a year old, he had the stature and
intelligence of a boy of fifteen or sixteen. The foundling had a great
affection for Magwdnts’s own son, a boy of fifteen, and the two became
boon companions. One day the salmon-boy asked Magwénts’s husband
to build for him a house on the shore of the river opposite the town,
choosing a spot which was on the course taken by the mergansers in flying
upstream. He further asked for, and received, some double-pointed, bone-
tipped arrows, such as are used for fowling. When the house was com-
pleted, the salmon-boy invited his foster-brother to accompany him to it.
Once inside he showed his comrade some mysterious food, a gift from
Afgunidm, which he carried in his mouth on all occasions. Then he said:

“I want always to enter this house first, and must sleep on a raised
platform-bed behind the fire on all occasions. When you come to the
house, always knock; otherwise I shall fall dead.”

After these instructions were given, the two boys crossed the river to
theirhome. Early next morning, Magwénts’s own son heard his comrade,
whose name in the salmon language was Skatpts, meaning chief of the
spring salmon, leave the mother’s house. Obedient to the injunction, he
said nothing, nor did he follow to the new shelter until the first sign of
dawn. He knocked at the door and was told to enter by the salmon-boy.
Mergansers were flying past within a few feet. Skatpts made his prepara-
tions by fastening to one of his arrows a cord, which he had plaited from
woman’s hair, so that he could draw back the missile after discharging it.
With this contrivance he shot a single merganser, which the two boys
carried back to the village. Magwdmnts and her husband, as well as the
man who had advised rearing the salmon-boy, were delighted at his skill,
the child being only a year old. It was the first time that such a method
of hunting mergansers had ever been employed.

The next morning before dawn the salmon-boy again stole away to
the new house, followed, as before, by his foster-brother at day-break.
This time he killed two mergansers, which he bore home in triumph. The
_third morning he slew three birds, four on the fourth, and ten on the fifth.
That evening Magwédnts’s husband gave a feast to all the chiefs with the
mergansers the salmon-boy had brought in, and the company was greatly
pleased at his phenomenal success. On the sixth day he brought back a
river canoe filled with the birds, which he distributed to each household,

amid great rejoicing.

|
—