boas] TSIMSHIAN MYTHS 195 



Gather all the little bones and cast them into the fire." The Mouse- 

 Woman went away after giving her advice to the prince. 



Now, the chief ordered his attendants to give good food to the 

 visiting prince. They did so; and after the prince had eaten, the 

 chief said to him, "My son, I am well pleased that you have come to 

 my village. You shall live with me in my own house, and I will 

 take care of you, together with all my good people, until we take you 

 back to your own home. I am glad because you have taken me out 

 of your mother's small box; and you unfolded my feet and my arms, 

 therefore I sent to bring you to my house." Thus spoke the chief to 

 the prince. 



Now, the prince stood there for awhile. On the following day he 

 was very hungry. Then he remembered the advice of the old 

 Mouse Woman. He went behind the village, and saw there many 

 children playing on the sand-hill. Some of them threw themselves 

 down and rolled down to the foot of the hill. Then the prince stood 

 there. He took a club, and when he saw a good-looking boy, he 

 took hold of him and clubbed him. The boy was at once trans- 

 formed into a nice little spring salmon. He was surprised. He 

 took it and went up a little farther along the sand-hill. There he 

 started a fire and roasted the whole small spring salmon; and when 

 it was done, he ate it all. After he had eaten, he went to a brook, 

 drank, and went back to gather all the bones, which he burned, as 

 the old Mouse Woman had advised him to do. 



Then he went to the chief's house. In the evening, as soon as he 

 was seated at the side, of the house, he heard some one cry bitterly, 

 saying, "Oh, my eye is sore, my eye is sore!" Then the Mouse 

 Woman came to him and said, "Go and search in the hole at the foot 

 of your roasting-spit!" He went quickly, and found the eye of the 

 little spring salmon in the little hole where the roasting-spit had 

 been placed. He threw it into the fire. When he went in, behold! 

 the boy whose eye had been sore had recovered. 



The Mouse Woman also advised him, "As soon as you have eaten 

 the fresh salmon, take a drink of fresh water" (so the natives do 

 nowadays; as soon as they have eaten any kind of salmon or any 

 kind of fish, they take a drink of fresh water, that the salmon or 

 other kinds of fishes may be revived again, and so go home again 

 gladly). 



One day the chief sent his people to see if the leaves of the cotton- 

 wood had fallen into the Skeena River. They went, and found a 

 few leaves falling from the cottonwood tree. The Salmon called the 

 leaves of the cottonwood tree salmon. It was early in the spring 

 when the Spring Salmon were sent to see whether cottonwood leaves 

 had fallen into Skeena and Xass Rivers. When they came back 

 from these two rivers, the chief asked if there were salmon in the 

 rivers. The scouts said that there were a few in the rivers. 



