TACOMA AND THE INDIAN LEGEND OF HAMITCHOU 



nothing tamanoiis but an unexpected sorry object of 

 a horse. A wretched castaway, probably abandoned 

 by the exploring party, or astray from them, essaying 

 to leap the tree, had fallen back beneath the trunk 

 and branches, and lay there entangled and perfectly 

 helpless. We struggled to release him. In vain. At 

 last a thought struck me. We seized the poor beast 

 by his tail, fortunately a tenacious member, and, 

 heaving vigorously, towed him out of prison. 



He tottered forlornly to his feet, looking about him 

 like one risen from the dead. "How now, Caudal?" 

 said I, baptizing him by the name of the part that 

 saved his life; "canst thou follow toward fodder?" 

 He debated the question with himself awhile. Soli- 

 tary confinement of indefinite length, in a cramped 

 posture, had given the poor skeleton time to consider 

 that safety from starvation is worth one effort more. 

 He found that there was still a modicum of life and its 

 energy within his baggy hide. My horses seemed to 

 impart to him some of their electricity, and he stag- 

 gered on droopingly. Lucky Caudal, if life is worth 

 having, that on that day, of all days, I should have 

 arrived to rescue him. Strange deliverances for body 

 and soul come to the dying. Fate sends unlooked-for 

 succor, when or horses or men despair. 



Luckily for Caudal, the weak-kneed and utterly de- 

 jected, Sowee's prairie was near, near was the 

 prairie of Sowee, mighty hunter of deer and elk, 

 terror of bears. There at weird night Sowee's ghost 

 was often seen to stalk. Dyspeptics from feather- 

 beds behold ghosts, and are terrified, but nightwalkers 

 are but bugbears to men who have ridden from dawn 

 to dusk of a long summer's day over an Indian trail 

 in the mountains. I felt no fear that any incubus in 

 the shape of a brassy-hued Indian chief would sit upon 

 my breast that night, and murder wholesome sleep. 



Nightfall was tumbling down from the zenith before 

 we reached camp. The sweet glimmers of twilight were 



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