was a little uncertain about telling him. If I said the wrong thing,
the coming tale might die on his lips before it was born to speech, but
we understood each other so well that I finally ventured the truth:

"We Iroquois say that twin children are as rabbits," I explained. "The
nation always nicknames the parents 'Tow-wan-da-na-ga.' That is the
Mohawk for rabbit."

"Is that all?" he asked curiously.

"That is all. Is it not enough to render twin children unwelcome?" I
questioned.

He thought awhile, then with evident desire to learn how all races
regarded this occurrence, he said, "You have been much among the
Palefaces, what do they say of twins?"

"Oh! the Palefaces like them. They are--they are--oh! well, they say
they are very proud of having twins," I stammered. Once again I was
hardly sure of my ground. He looked most incredulous, and I was led to
enquire what his own people of the Squamish thought of this discussed
problem.

"It is no pride to us," he said decidedly; "nor yet is it disgrace of
rabbits, but it is a fearsome thing--a sign of coming evil to the
father, and, worse than that, of coming disaster to the tribe."

Then I knew he held in his heart some strange incident that gave
substance to the superstition. "Won't you tell it to me?" I begged.

He leaned a little backward against a giant boulder, clasping his thin,
brown hands about his knees; his eyes roved up the galloping river,
then swept down the singing waters to where they crowded past the
sudden bend, and during the entire recital of the strange legend his
eyes never left that spot where the stream disappeared in its hurrying
journey to the sea. Without preamble he began:

"It was a grey morning when they told him of this disaster that had
befallen him. He was a great chief, and he ruled many tribes on the
North Pacific Coast; but what was his greatness now? His young wife
had borne him twins, and was sobbing out her anguish in the little
fir-bark lodge near the tidewater.

"Beyond the doorway gathered many old men and women--old in years, old
in wisdom, old in the lore and learning of their nations. Some of them
wept, some chanted solemnly the dirge of their lost hopes and
happiness, which would never return because of this calamity; others
discussed in hushed voices this awesome thing, and for hours their
grave council was broken only by the infant cries of the two boy-babies
in the bark lodge, the hopeless sobs of the