“Never!” shouted the tribesmen, and every bow and arrow was turned simultaneously upon the chief.

“Slaves!  Cowards!” thundered the enraged and fearless kookpi, like a mountain lion in pain.  In a moment every bow and arrow fell by its warrior’s side.

As the consequence of this act on the part of his subjects is of no importance to this story, we will leave it to the reader’s imagination just what sort of punishment was doled out to them.  It is safe to say, however, that Netaskit was too wise a kookpi to order the death of so many brave followers, as this means of gratifying his wounded pride would simply mean the weakening of the tribe, and would put his own life in jeopardy.

A message was sent to the Lillooet illihae (country) with the glad tidings, and at the close of two days a swarm of smootlatches (women), and keekas (girls), rushed into camp breathless, and began hysterically searching for their respective sweethearts or husbands among the prisoners.  The scene was more than poetic; and it was pathetic in the extreme.  It was a scene that had not occurred before on the broad surface of the earth—­those fifty distracted squaws rushing into the jaws of death in their eagerness to rescue the ones without whom life would be empty, useless, aimless.  It is said that it melted the heart of the very rocks about the place, so that to this day the surface of the earth at that spot betrays evidence of having at one time been running lava.

The captives were lined up before the kookpi’s kikwilly house, and the little army of love-mad squaws, awful in their primitiveness, rushed at the line, selected their respective skiuchs (men), and clung to them, hugged them, kissed them wildly in the awful heat of their passion, each in her eagerness to save one at all hazards for her own selfish, but natural self.  And no power on earth could tear them asunder.  It melted the hearts of the victors so that they called out with one voice:  “Go, you have won!” and as they moved away shouting, and laughing, and dancing, Netaskit was seen to weep, so great was his respect for Cupid.

“O woman! woman!” he was heard to exclaim.  And this is the reason there is so much harmony between the Statlemulth and the Shuswap to-day.

Of Simple Simon Up To Date

Once upon a time in Ashcroft there lived a “Simon” who had no knowledge of the purchasing value of his salary asset.  He did not know that its buying powers were narrowed down to bread and butter and overalls; and as a consequence he was victimized down into a very precarious financial predicament, to say nothing about the valuable and most vigorous and productive years of his life, that were thrown into the scrap heap of time, and had to be cancelled from his list of revenue-producers.