All along the inlet eagles, ospreys, and crows fairly swarmed, brought there by the abundance of the fish, which offer food to all of them. Salmon and many other sorts of good fish run up the Arm, while the dog-fish--a small shark--is everywhere. There is no reason why a fish-eating bird should starve here; and, besides the fish, the crows and ravens find abundant food along the shore in the various sorts of shell-fish that are everywhere abundant.
A little later, as the two were sitting on the deck in front of the pilot house, enjoying the warm sun, the Indian Seammux came up, and, squatting down beside them, began to talk in Chinook to Mr. Fannin. After he had spoken for a few moments Mr. Fannin answered him, and, turning to Jack, said: "Here is something that maybe will interest you. Seammux is telling me a story about a selallicum that used to live in the North Arm of the inlet, and in old times killed many Indians. This monster must have been of great size. It was peculiar in form, too, being shaped like two fishes, whose bodies were joined together at the tail. It used to lie stretched across the mouth of the North Arm, just beneath the surface of the water, one of its heads reaching across to the other shore. Whenever a canoe attempted to pass up the Arm, the monster would wait until the vessel was directly over its body and then would rise to the surface and upset the canoe, and devour the occupants. That is all that he has told me so far."
He spoke to Seammux, who replied at considerable length, and Mr. Fannin interpreted again. "'In this way,' he says, 'the monster killed many Indians, for the North Arm was a great hunting place, and fish and game and berries abounded along the river, so that the people had to go there to get them for food. At last, the loss of life caused by the monster became so terrible, that the Squamisht Indians had lost nearly half their people; and now no one dared to go up the Arm, so that the people feared that they would starve.'
"'In one of the villages there was a young man who had seen the misfortune of his people and pitied them. He felt so sorry for them that he at last determined that he would sacrifice himself for his race by killing this monster, even though it cost him his life. One day he went to his family and bade them good-by, saying that he was going away and should not be back for a long time. That day he went into the mountains and did not return again. In the mountains he fasted for many days, and prayed to the spirits, and at length one night when he was getting very weak, he dreamed that a large white goat stood near him as he slept and spoke to him, for a long time, telling him to take courage and advising him what he should do. The next day the young man went farther into the mountains and gathered certain roots and herbs, and after he had dried them and pounded them into powder, he mixed them with some sacred oil, and rubbed the mixture over his whole body, leaving no part of his skin untouched. Then he walked down the mountains to the shore of the inlet, and dived into the water. For five years he lived in the water, scarcely ever coming out on shore; and in all these five years he never spoke to a man. He became so much at home in the water that he could swim faster than a seal or a salmon, and at the end of that time his spiritual power was so strong that he could call up to him the fishes or the seals and lift them into the canoe.