“‘Take me, but release my wife and boy-baby.’

“So the compact was made.  Two hundred heroic, magnificent young men paddled up to the island, broke through the fortifying circle of canoes, and stepped ashore.  They flaunted their eagle plumes with the spirit and boldness of young gods.  Their shoulders were erect, their step was firm, their hearts strong.  Into their canoes they crowded the two hundred captives.  Once more their women sobbed, their old men muttered, their children wailed, but those young copper-colored gods never flinched, never faltered.  Their weak and their feeble were saved.  What mattered to them such a little thing as death?

“The released captives were quickly surrounded by their own people, but the flower of their splendid nation was in the hands of their enemies, those valorous young men who thought so little of life that they willingly, gladly laid it down to serve and to save those they loved and cared for.  Amongst them were war-tried warriors who had fought fifty battles, and boys not yet full grown, who were drawing a bow-string for the first time; but their hearts, their courage, their self-sacrifice were as one.

“Out before a long file of southern warriors they stood.  Their chins uplifted, their eyes defiant, their breasts bared.  Each leaned forward and laid his weapons at his feet, then stood erect, with empty hands, and laughed forth his challenge to death.  A thousand arrows ripped the air, two hundred gallant northern throats flung forth a death cry exultant, triumphant as conquering kings—­then two hundred fearless northern hearts ceased to beat.

“But in the morning the southern tribes found the spot where they fell peopled with flaming fire-flowers.  Dread terror seized upon them.  They abandoned the island, and when night again shrouded them they manned their canoes and noiselessly slipped through the Narrows, turned their bows southward, and this coast-line knew them no more.”

“What glorious men!” I half whispered as the chief concluded the strange legend.

“Yes, men!” he echoed.  “The white people call it Deadman’s Island.  That is their way; but we of the Squamish call it The Island of Dead Men.”

The clustering pines and the outlines of the island’s margin were now dusky and indistinct.  Peace, peace lay over the waters, and the purple of the summer twilight had turned to grey, but I knew that in the depths of the undergrowth on Deadman’s Island there blossomed a flower of flaming beauty; its colors were veiled in the coming nightfall, but somewhere down in the sanctuary of its petals pulsed the heart’s blood of many and valiant men.

A SQUAMISH LEGEND OF NAPOLEON

Holding an important place among the majority of curious tales held in veneration by the coast tribes are those of the sea-serpent.  The monster appears and reappears with almost monotonous frequency in connection with history, traditions, legends and superstitions; but perhaps the most wonderful part it ever played was in the great drama that held the stage of Europe, and incidentally all the world during the stormy days of the first Napoleon.