LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER

know my bed, my body and my heart are all clean I can overcome this serpent.’

“ ‘Your bed shall have fresh furs every morning,’ his mother said simply.

“The Tenas Tyee then stripped himself and, with no clothing save a buckskin belt into which he thrust his hunting-knife, he flung his lithe young body into the sea. But at the end of four days he did not return. Some- times his people could see him swimming far out in mid-channel, endeavoring to find the exact centre of the serpent, where lay its evil, elfish heart; but on the fifth morning they saw him rise out of the sea, climb to the sum- mit of Brockton Point and greet the rising sun with outstretched arms. Weeks and months went by, still the Tenas Tyee would swim daily searching for that heart of greed; and each morning the sunrise glinted on his slender young copper-colored body as he stood with outstretched arms at the tip of Brockton Point, greeting the coming day and then plunging from the summit into the sea.

“And at his home on the north shore his mother dressed his bed with fresh furs each morning. The seasons drifted by, winter followed summer, summer followed winter. But it was four years before the Tenas Tyee found the centre of the great salt-chuck oluk and plunged his hunting-knife into its evil

56