THE RECLUSE

who can tell what fatal trick of sound, what
current of air, what faltering note in the voice
of the Medicine Man had deceived his alert
Indian ears? But some unhappy fate had led
him to understand that his solitude must be
of ten years’ duration, not ten days, and he
had accepted the mandate with the heroism
of a stoic. For if he had refused to do so his
belief was that although the threatened dis-
aster would be spared him, the evil would fall
upon his tribe. Thus was one more added to
the long list of self-forgetting souls whose
creed has been, ‘It is fitting that one should
suffer for the people.’ It was the world-old
heroism of vicarious sacrifice.

“With his hunting-knife the banished
Squamish chief stripped the bark from the firs
and cedars, building for himself a lodge be-
side the Capilano River, where leaping trout
and salmon could be speared by arrow-heads
fastened to deftly shaped, long handles. All
through the salmon run he smoked and dried
the fish with the care of a housewife. The
mountain sheep and goats, and even huge
black and cinnamon bears, fell before his un-
erring arrows; the fleet-footed deer never re-
turned to their haunts from their evening
drinking at the edge of the stream—their wild
hearts, their agile bodies were stilled when he
took aim. Smoked hams and saddles hung in

23

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