LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER

you sit wrapped in your blanket in the hot
summer sunshine, because your blood is old
and thin, what can a girl-child do to help
either you or us? Who, then. will be our
Great Tyee?’

“He stood in the centre of the menacing
circle, his arms folded, his chin raised, his eyes
hard as flint. His voice, cold as stone, replied:

“ ‘Perhaps she will give you such a man-
child, and, if so, the child is yours; he will
belong to you, not to me; he will become the
possession of the people. But if the child is
a girl she will belong to me-—she will be mine.
You cannot take her from me as you took me
from my mother's side and forced me to for-_
get my aged father in my service to my tribe;
she will belong to me, will be the mother of
my grandchildren, and her husband will be
my son.’

“ ‘You do not care for the good of your
tribe. You care only for your own wishes and
desires,’ they rebelled. ‘Suppose the salmon
run is small, we will have no food; suppose
there is no man-child, we will have no Great
Tyee to show us how to get food from other
tribes, and we shall starve.’

“ ‘Your hearts are black and bloodless,’
thundered the Great Tyee, turning upon them
fiercely, ‘and your eyes are blinded. Do you
wish the tribe to forget how great is the im-

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