TACOMA AND THE INDIAN LEGEND OF HAMITCHOU 



buried to the eyes in a snowdrift, or bedded upside 

 down on a shaggy boulder, or gnawed by lacerating 

 lava jaws. Sharp torture the old man was encounter- 

 ing, but he held fast to his hiaqua. 



"The blackness grew ever deeper and more crowded 

 with perdition ; the din more impish, demoniac, and 

 devilish ; the laughter more appalling ; and the miser 

 more and more exhausted with vain buffeting. He 

 determined to propitate exasperated Tamanoiis with 

 a sacrifice. He threw into the black cylinder storm 

 his left-handful, five strings of precious hiaqua." 



"Somewhat long-winded is thy legend, Hamitchou, 

 Great Medicine-Man of the Squallyamish," quoth I. 

 "Why didn't the old fool drop his wampum, shell 

 out, as one might say, and make tracks?" 



"Well, well!" continued Hamitchou; "when the 

 miser had thrown away his first handful of hiaqua, 

 there was a momentary lull in elemental war, and he 

 heard the otters puffing around him invisible. Then 

 the storm renewed, blacker, louder, harsher, crueller 

 than before, and over the dread undertone of the voice 

 of Tamanoiis, tamanoiis voices again screamed, 'Ha, 

 ha, ha, hiaqua!' and it seemed as if tamanoiis hands, 

 or the paws of the demon otters, clutched at the miser's 

 right-handful and tore at his shoulder and waist belts. 



"So, while darkness and tempest still buffeted the 

 hapless old man, and thrust him away from his path, 

 and while the roaring was wickeder than the roars of 

 tens and tens of tens of bears when ahungered they 

 pounce upon a plain of kamas, gradually wounded 

 and terrified he flung away string after string of hiaqua, 

 gaining never any notice of such sacrifice, except an 

 instant's lull of the cyclone and a puff from the invisible 

 otters. 



"The last string he clung to long, and before he 

 threw it to be caught and whirled after its fellows, he 

 tore off a single bunch of fifty shells. But upon this, 

 too, the storm laid its clutches. In the final desperate 



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