he admitted having tested
the virtues of this rock, and it had never once failed him. All
people that have to do with water-craft are superstitious about
some things, and I freely acknowledge that times innumerable I
have "whistled up" a wind when dead calm threatened, or stuck
a jack-knife in the mast, and afterwards watched with great
contentment the idle sail fill, and the canoe pull out to a light
breeze. So, perhaps, I am prejudiced in favor of this legend of
Homolsom Rock, for it strikes a very responsive chord in that
portion of my heart that has always throbbed for the sea.

"You know," began my young tillicum, "that only waters unspoiled
by human hands can be of any benefit. One gains no strength by
swimming in any waters heated or boiled by fires that men build.
To grow strong and wise one must swim in the natural rivers, the
mountain torrents, the sea, just as the Sagalie Tyee made them.
Their virtues die when human beings try to improve them by heating
or distilling, or placing even tea in them, and so--what makes
Homolsom Rock so full of 'good medicine' is that the waters that
wash up about it are straight from the sea, made by the hand of
the Great Tyee, and unspoiled by the hand of man.

"It was not always there, that great rock, drawing its strength and
its wonderful power from the seas, for it, too, was once a Great
Tyee, who ruled a mighty tract of waters. He was god of all the
waters that wash the coast, of the Gulf of Georgia, of Puget Sound,
of the Straits of Juan de Fuca, of the waters that beat against even
the west coast of Vancouver Island, and of all the channels that cut
between the Charlotte Islands. He was Tyee of the West Wind, and
his storms and tempests were so mighty that the Sagalie Tyee Himself
could not control the havoc that he created. He warred upon all
fishing craft, he demolished canoes, and sent men to graves in the
sea. He uprooted forests and drove the surf on shore heavy with
wreckage of despoiled trees and with beaten and bruised fish. He
did all this to reveal his powers, for he was cruel and hard of
heart, and he would laugh and defy the Sagalie Tyee, and, looking up
to the sky, he would call, 'See how powerful I am, how mighty, how
strong; I am as great as you.'

"It was at this time that the Sagalie Tyee in the persons of the
Four Men came in the great canoe up over the rim of the Pacific,
in that age thousands of years ago when they turned the evil into
st