quietly.

He glanced up quickly, and with one of his all too few radiant
smiles, he laughed.

"Yes, skookum tum-tum." Then without further hesitation he told
the tradition, which, although not of ancient happening, is held in
great reverence by his tribe. During its recital he sat with folded
arms, leaning on the table, his head and shoulders bending eagerly
towards me as I sat at the opposite side. It was the only time he
ever talked to me when he did not use emphasising gesticulations,
but his hands never once lifted: his wonderful eyes alone gave
expression to what he called "The Legend of the 'Salt-chuck Oluk'"
(sea-serpent).

"Yes, it was during the first gold craze, and many of our young men
went as guides to the whites far up the Fraser. When they returned
they brought these tales of greed and murder back with them, and
our old people and our women shook their heads and said evil would
come of it. But all our young men, except one, returned as they
went--kind to the poor, kind to those who were foodless, sharing
whatever they had with their tillicums. But one, by name Shak-shak
(The Hawk), came back with hoards of gold nuggets, chickimin
(money), everything; he was rich like the white men, and, like them,
he kept it. He would count his chickimin, count his nuggets, gloat
over them, toss them in his palms. He rested his head on them as
he slept, he packed them about with him through the day. He loved
them better than food, better than his tillicums, better than his
life. The entire tribe arose. They said Shak-shak had the disease
of greed; that to cure it he must give a great potlatch, divide his
riches with the poorer ones, share them with the old, the sick, the
foodless. But he jeered and laughed and told them No, and went on
loving and gloating over his gold.

"Then the Sagalie Tyee spoke out of the sky and said, 'Shak-shak,
you have made of yourself a loathsome thing; you will not listen to
the cry of the hungry, to the call of the old and sick; you will not
share your possessions; you have made of yourself an outcast from
your tribe and disobeyed the ancient laws of your people. Now I
will make of you a thing loathed and hated by all men, both white
and red. You will have two heads, for your greed has two mouths to
bite. One bites the poor, and one bites your own evil heart; and
the fangs in these mouths are poison--poison that kills the hungry,
and poison that kills your own manhood. Y