It was a full half-hour before we neared the island, yet neither of us spoke during that time; then, as the "grey gull" shaped itself into rock and tree and crag, I noticed in the very centre a stupendous pile of stone lifting itself skyward, without fissure or cleft; but a peculiar haziness about the base made me peer narrowly to catch the perfect outline.
"It is the 'Grey Archway,'" he explained, simply.
Only then did I grasp the singular formation before us: the rock was a perfect archway, through which we could see the placid Pacific shimmering in the growing colors of the coming sunset at the opposite rim of the island.
"What a remarkable whim of Nature!" I exclaimed, but his brown hand was laid in a contradictory grasp on my arm, and he snatched up my comment almost with impatience.
"No, it was not Nature," he said. "That is the reason I say you will understand—you are one of us—you will know what I tell you is true. The Great Tyee did not make that archway, it was—" here his voice lowered—"it was magic, red man's medicine and magic—you savvy?"
"Yes," I said. "Tell me, for I—savvy."
"Long time ago," he began, stumbling into a half-broken English language, because, I think, of the atmosphere and environment, "long before you were born, or your father, or grandfather, or even his father, this strange thing happened. It is a story for women to hear, to remember. Women are the future mothers of the tribe, and we of the Pacific Coast hold such in high regard, in great reverence. The women who are mothers—o-ho!—they are the important ones, we say. Warriors, fighters, brave men, fearless daughters, owe their qualities to these mothers—eh, is it not always so?"
I nodded silently. The island was swinging nearer to us, the "Grey Archway" loomed almost above us, the mysticism crowded close, it enveloped me, caressed me, appealed to me.
"And?" I hinted.
"And," he proceeded, "this 'Grey Archway' is a story of mothers, of magic, of witchcraft, of warriors, of—love."