1 5 8 A SPORTSMAN'S EDEN. 



LETTER XV. 



DEAR PAT, 



I promised you some Indian fairy-tales. 

 The following is the best that I can do for you. 

 Half the legends which do duty as history among 

 the red-men of the Similkameen have for their 

 hero the Tumisco ; a chief of the tribe which 

 dwells near Princetown, and the immediate pre- 

 decessor and father of the reigning potentate, 

 In-cow-market. It was through In-cow -market 

 that the stories reached my friend Mrs. Alison, 

 who handed them on to me ; and upon In-cow- 

 market's head be the shame if they are false, and 

 the glory if they have in them some of the wild 

 poetry of that stern country from whence they 

 came. I read them first by the flames of my 

 huge camp-fire upon ' the summit,' and wove 

 them into their present shape as I rode in soli- 

 tude and darkness under the tall gray pines, on 

 that night of storm described in my last letter. 

 It may be that I have thus rolled many legends 



