oud broke and bellowed
through the ranges, and on its summit the Thunder-bird perched, its
gigantic wings threshing the air into booming sounds, into splitting
terrors, like the crash of a giant cedar hurtling down the mountain-side.

"But when the beating of those black pinions ceased and the echo of
their thunder-waves died down the depths of the canyon, the Squamish
chief arose as a new man. The shadow on his soul had lifted, the
fears of evil were cowed and conquered. In his brain, his blood,
his veins, his sinews, he felt that the poison of melancholy dwelt
no more. He had redeemed his fault of fathering twin children; he
had fulfilled the demands of the law of his tribe.

"As he heard the last beat of the Thunder-bird's wings dying slowly,
faintly, faintly, among the crags, he knew that the bird,
too, was dying, for its soul was leaving its monster black body, and
presently that soul appeared in the sky. He could see it arching
overhead, before it took its long journey to the Happy Hunting
Grounds, for the soul of the Thunder-bird was a radiant half-circle
of glorious color spanning from peak to peak. He lifted his head
then, for he knew it was the sign the ancient medicine-man had told
him to wait for--the sign that his long banishment was ended.

"And all these years, down in the tidewater country, the little
brown-faced twins were asking childwise, 'Where is our father?
Why have we no father, like other boys?' To be met only with the
oft-repeated reply, 'Your father is no more. Your father, the
great chief, is dead.'

"But some strange filial intuition told the boys that their sire
would some day return. Often they voiced this feeling to their
mother, but she would only weep and say that not even the witchcraft
of the great medicine-man could bring him to them. But when they
were ten years old the two children came to their mother, hand
within hand. They were armed with their little hunting-knives,
their salmon-spears, their tiny bows and arrows.

"'We go to find our father,' they said.

"'Oh! useless quest,' wailed the mother.

"'Oh! useless quest,' echoed the tribes-people.

"But the great medicine-man said, 'The heart of a child has
invisible eyes; perhaps the child-eyes see him. The heart of a
child has invisible ears; perhaps the child-ears hear him call.
Let them go.' So the little children went forth into the forest;
their young feet flew as though shod with wings, their young heart