ally crept inland, skirting up the coast to
the mouth of False Creek. Here he encountered a very king of seals, a
colossal creature that gladdened the hunter's eyes as game worthy of
his skill. For this particular prize he would cast the elk-bone spear.
It had never failed his sire, his grandsire, his great-grandsire. He
knew it would not fail him now. A long, pliable, cedar-fibre rope lay
in his canoe. Many expert fingers had woven and plaited that rope, had
beaten and oiled it until it was soft and flexible as a serpent. This
he attached to the spearhead, and with deft, unerring aim cast it at
the king seal. The weapon struck home. The gigantic creature
shuddered and, with a cry like a hurt child, it plunged down into the
sea. With the rapidity and strength of a giant fish it scudded inland
with the rising tide, while Capilano paid out the rope its entire
length, and, as it stretched taut, felt the canoe leap forward,
propelled by the mighty strength of the creature which lashed the
waters into whirlpools, as though it was possessed with the power and
properties of a whale.

[Illustration: THE SEVEN SISTERS, STANLEY PARK. Bishop & Christie,
Photo.]

Up the stretch of False Creek the man and monster drove their course,
where a century hence great city bridges were to over-arch the waters.
They strove and struggled each for the mastery, neither of them
weakened, neither of them faltered--the one dragging, the other
driving. In the end it was to be a matching of brute and human wits,
not forces. As they neared the point where now Main Street bridge
flings its shadow across the waters, the brute leaped high into the
air, then plunged headlong into the depths. The impact ripped the rope
from Capilano's hands. It rattled across the gunwale. He stood
staring at the spot where it had disappeared--the brute had been
victorious. At low tide the Indian made search. No trace of his game,
of his precious elk-bone spear, of his cedar-fibre rope, could be
found. With the loss of the latter he firmly believed his luck as a
hunter would be gone. So he patrolled the mouth of False Creek for
many moons. His graceful, high-bowed canoe rarely touched other
waters, but the seal king had disappeared. Often he thought long
strands of drifting sea grasses were his lost cedar-fibre rope. With
other spears, with other cedar-fibres, with paddle blade and cunning
traps he dislodged the weeds from their moorings, but they s