8io 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Nov. 21, 1908. 
Presently, behind him, the moon rose, a great 
globe of milky blue light, looking with solitary 
majesty toward the face of the glowing west. 
A small wood mouse ran out from a brush pile 
and began to nibble at Tomaso’s moose hide 
moccasin. Amused, he watched it, glad to rest 
his eyes from the continuous strain of his watch¬ 
ing. When he looked up again a lump rose spas¬ 
modically in his throat. 
Not seventy-five yards distant loomed the mov¬ 
ing bulk of a huge deer. He was walking along 
the runway with slow jerky steps and even at 
that distance the depths of his shoulder appeared 
beyond belief. And as Tomaso stared he saw 
that the buck’s horns were likewise of colossal 
size, standing up from his head like young sap¬ 
lings. One was quite pink, as though recently 
shorn of the velvet, but the other was white as 
silver and glistened as it brushed the alder tops 
in the waning light. 
Three steps more and the buck would have 
been out of sight, when Tomaso roused himself 
from his stupor. Pressing his rifle snugly to 
his shoulder he gave a low, clear whistle. In¬ 
stantly the buck stopped. Whirling in his tracks, 
with nose in air and ears forward, he faced the 
direction of the sound. Imperceptibly Tomaso’s 
finger tightened on the trigger; imperceptibly, 
but with a deadly sureness. Then a cloud of 
smoke poured from the rifle muzzle and a crash¬ 
ing report shocked the silence. As it cleared 
away Tomaso ran with long, striding jumps 
down into the beaver meadow. A moment later 
an exclamation of victory left his lips, for there, 
directly in the spot where a second before he 
had been standing, lay the buck, stiffening in 
death. He had fallen forward on his chest and 
his great blue-gray body loomed like a rock 
in the twilight. Suddenly a beam from the 
moon glanced along the silver horn and a flame 
seemed to rise up and strike Tomaso in the 
eyes. A fragrant warmth enveloped his being 
and an intoxication of happiness conquered the 
memory of all he had suffered. 
Two hours later, with the buck’s head swung 
on his back, he was striding through the moonlit 
forest toward the place of meeting with the seer. 
Just after the sun rose he arrived on the edge 
of the “burning” where the old man was await¬ 
ing him. Tomaso came forward into the sun¬ 
light and unstrapping the huge he'hd laid it on 
the ground. The seer returned his glance with 
kind approval, and yet it seemed half pityingly. 
“You have indeed accomplished what I little 
thought you could,” he said. “Many seek the 
unattainable, but how few are successful. This 
buck’s horn will become my sole property. You 
must take your canoe and continue down stream 
until you meet the soul of your desire. I think 
you have made no mistake.” 
He ceased speaking and with the same peculiar 
motion of head and hands melted from sight. 
This time there was no fox fire, but only a 
rosy sun shaft to mark his departure. Tomaso 
walked up the bank of the stream until he found 
his canoe, which he had left concealed in the 
bushes. Launching it, he seated himself in the 
stern and took up his paddle. The canoe sprang 
forward into the current. A vapor of mist 
curled along the water, and in another minute 
rounding a grassy bend it passed from view. 
After that no one ever saw Tomaso again. 
******** 
Sometimes when you are walking or hunting 
or otherwise occupied in the woods you will be 
aware of a distinct murmur of voices. Again 
and unexpectedly you will hear someone call, 
call so distinctly that you stop, turn and look 
back. Or perhaps on a wind-racing, autumn twi¬ 
light, the sound of melodious laughter, very soft 
and far-distant, will reach your ears. And if 
you are unacquainted with the history of Tomaso 
and his nymph, you will wonder at all these 
things. But then, should you take the trouble 
to read this tale and learn of their happiness, you 
will understand. 
Shark God of the Ancient Hawaiian. 
Honolulu, T. H., Oct. 29 .—Editor Forest and 
Stream: The ancient Hawaiians were never 
nnibals, but they had a dreadful system of 
ligious despotism that made human sacrifices 
WHERE THE ELEPHANT DRINKS. 
a common practice. They had many deities, 
usually associated, or supposed to be associated 
with natural phenomena, and like most barbarous 
peoples, their worship largely took the form 
of propitiation of the gods who were more often 
than not antagonistic to humanity. 
Mano, the shark, was one of the most feared 
and consequently venerated of the Hawaiian 
gods, and their close association with the ocean, 
from which a large part of their food came, of 
course brought with it these great fishes. Of 
the large family of sharks, the great man-eater 
so-called (Carcharodon carcharias) or niuhi as 
the native knew it, was naturally the most 
dreaded. This shark is not so common in Ha¬ 
waiian waters as it is in the West Indies and 
in the Indian ocean, but its appearance is fre¬ 
quent enough to have made the islanders thor¬ 
oughly familiar with its voracious habits. 
Strange as it may seem they did not hesitate 
to kill it, and in fact the feat was, at least under 
some circumstances, considered to endow those 
who accomplished it, with some of the at¬ 
tributed virtues or powers of the slain monster. 
The manner of hunting the man-eater is a 
part of recorded tradition, and is as interesting 
as it is curious. Elaborate preparations were 
made, in which the priest doctors or kahunas, as 
they were called, took a prominent part. A large 
quantity of roasted meat of pig and dog was 
prepared, and finally with a kahuna in charge, 
the great double or outrigger canoes would put 
to sea and proceed many miles off shore. When 
the proper place had been determined upon, the 
roast meat would be thrown into the water with 
the result that usually one or more of the niuhis 
would be attracted sooner or later. At first 
the quarry would be wary, but by means of more 
meat the big fish would finally be attracted close 
to the canoes, and would even become so bold 
as to thrust its head out of the water to receive 
the food. Then the natives would begin to feed 
it with meat soaked in an infusion of a root 
known as awa, which has a narcotic principle, 
until it became partially stupified and floated 
sluggishly on the surface. After a day or more 
of this a noose of rope would be slipped over 
the shark’s head and the canoes headed for 
home, the shark following a willing captive so 
long as the food was forthcoming. 
In this manner the tamed and partially intoxi¬ 
cated fish would be brought close to a sloping 
beach, when the rope would be passed ashore and 
the great creature pulled out of the water by the 
islanders and soon dispatched. The body would 
be cut up and various parts of it distributed 
among the captors, each of whom was supposed 
to be thus rendered more powerful and less sub¬ 
ject to evil influences, according to the part he 
had taken in the capture. The man who placed 
the noose over the shark’s head was accounted 
to have been rendered practically invincible. 
Will J. Cooper. 
Where the Elephant Drinks.* 
Where the river pauses before it leaps, 
Where its placid current but barely creeps 
To the very verge of the precipice, 
Ere it plunges into the dark abyss; 
Where the gray rock hangs o’er the sluggish tide, 
And the beetling cliff in its lonely pride 
Towers far above the cataract’s spray— 
There the elephant drinks in the Pend d’Oreille.f 
Where the eagle soars over mountain crown, 
And the wolf or the prowling bear looks down 
From the brush-fringed cliff, where the partridge hides. 
And the wild flowers color the mountain sides; 
Where the wild doe watches with sleepless eye; 
While her babies gambol and race near by; 
In the shadow of mountains old and gray— 
There the elephant drinks in the Pend d’Oreille.f 
Unscared by the coming of pale-faced men, 
Or the roar of dynamite in each glen; 
As calm as his namesake in Afric woods, 
Is this fitting type of earth’s solitudes. 
The white-skinned miner may tunnel the hills, 
And the silence vex with roar of his mills. 
Yet gently as closes the summer day, 
Still the elephant drinks in the Pend d’Oreille. 
In the dizzying rush of our modern life, 
When the soul is burdened with sin and strife, 
When we think of the days of other years, 
When the wilderness banished our doubts and fears; 
We sigh for the peace of the lonely scene, 
Where the river wandered the rocks between. 
And the penitent soul might kneel and pray— 
Where the elephant drinks in the Pend d’Oreille. 
*At the Metaline Falls of the Pend d’Oreille River a 
granite cliff on the right bank of the river shows a rep¬ 
resentation of the head of an elephant with lowered 
trunk drinking from the river’s placid surface on the 
very lip of the cataract. 
tPronounced Ponderay. Orin Belknap. 
