hes.

The fisherman's craft, the hunter's cunning, were plied where now
cities and industries, trade and commerce, buying and selling, hold
sway. In those days the moccasined foot awoke no echo in the forest
trails. Primitive weapons, arms, implements, and utensils were the
only means of the Indians' food-getting. His livelihood depended
upon his own personal prowess, his skill in woodcraft and water
lore. And, as this is a story of an elk-bone spear, the reader must
first be in sympathy with the fact that this rude instrument, most
deftly fashioned, was of priceless value to the first Capilano, to
whom it had come through three generations of ancestors, all of whom
had been experienced hunters and dexterous fishermen.

Capilano himself was without a rival as a spearman. He knew the
moods of the Fraser River, the habits of its thronging tenants, as
no other man has ever known them before or since. He knew every
isle and inlet along the coast, every boulder, the sand-bars, the
still pools, the temper of the tides. He knew the spawning-grounds,
the secret streams that fed the larger rivers, the outlets of
rock-bound lakes, the turns and tricks of swirling rapids. He
knew the haunts of bird and beast and fish and fowl, and was
master of the arts and artifice that man must use when matching
his brain against the eluding wiles of the untamed creatures of
the wilderness.

Once only did his cunning fail him, once only did Nature baffle
him with her mysterious fabric of waterways and land-lures. It
was when he was led to the mouth of the unknown river, which has
evaded discovery through all the centuries, but which--so say the
Indians--still sings on its way through some buried channel that
leads from the lake to the sea.

He had been sealing along the shores of what is now known as Point
Grey. His canoe had gradually 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 the 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 t