e faultless design, never erect a more
perfect edifice. But the divinely moulded trees and the man-made
cathedral have one exquisite characteristic in common. It is the
atmosphere of holiness. Most of us have better impulses after
viewing a stately cathedral, and none of us can stand amid that
majestic forest group without experiencing some elevating
thoughts, some refinement of our coarser nature. Perhaps those who
read this little legend will never again look at those cathedral
trees without thinking of the glorious souls they contain, for
according to the Coast Indians they do harbor human souls, and the
world is better because they once had the speech and the hearts of
mighty men.

My tillicum did not use the word "lure" in telling me this legend.
There is no equivalent for the word in the Chinook tongue, but the
gestures of his voiceful hands so expressed the quality of something
between magnetism and charm that I have selected this word "lure"
as best fitting what he wished to convey. Some few yards beyond
the cathedral trees, an overgrown disused trail turns into the dense
wilderness to the right. Only Indian eyes could discern that trail,
and the Indians do not willingly go to that part of the park to the
right of the great group. Nothing in this, nor yet the next world
would tempt a Coast Indian into the compact centres of the wild
portions of the park, for therein, concealed cunningly, is the
"lure" they all believe in. There is not a tribe in the entire
district that does not know of this strange legend. You will hear
the tale from those that gather at Eagle Harbor for the fishing,
from the Fraser River tribes, from the Squamish at the Narrows, from
the Mission, from up the Inlet, even from the tribes at North Bend,
but no one will volunteer to be your guide, for having once come
within the "aura" of the lure it is a human impossibility to leave
it. Your will-power is dwarfed, your intelligence blighted, your
feet will refuse to lead you out by a straight trail, you will
circle, circle for evermore about this magnet, for if death kindly
comes to your aid your immortal spirit will go on in that endless
circling that will bar it from entering the Happy Hunting Grounds.

And, like the cathedral trees, the lure once lived, a human soul,
but in this instance it was a soul depraved, not sanctified. The
Indian belief is very beautiful concerning the results of good and
evil in the human body. The Saga