The Haymakers of the Snow Peaks 



r 



sleet will envelop the mountain, the first patrol 

 of winter attacking it with a fierceness that 

 seems an assault by all the boreal hosts. But 

 whether you be prepared or not, the pikas have 

 not been caught napping! Their provender is 

 all safe in the underground barns. 



An odder and less known animal, living near 

 timber-line in the Coast ranges of Oregon and 

 northward, is the one introduced to us a century 

 ago by Lewis and Clark as the " sewellel," a 

 name which involved one of those errors so 

 easily and frequently made by explorers. It 

 appears that the Chinook Indian's name for the 

 animal itself was o-gwool-lal, but they called a 

 robe made of its skins she-wal-lal, corrupted 

 into " sewellel." That is, Lewis and Clark mis- 

 took the name of the garment for that of the 

 animal. The Nisquallies, living along the shores 

 of Puget Sound, called it showt'l, as may be 

 seen in some of our older books; and the white 

 trappers soon dubbed the animal " mountain 

 beaver," which was much closer to the truth 

 than their names usually were. 



In fact it is nearer to the beaver than to any 

 ^257 



