'No; I have not been bidden, but I am going.' So she got ready some food and tied it up in a small package for him, and gave him the clean shirt and what he wanted for his hair.
He was the last to reach the canoe, and the men who were seated in it cried when they beheld him:
'Don't let him come! Don't let him come!' But Blackskin was determined to get in, and seized the canoe as they were pushing it off. In vain they struck his fingers to force him to let go; and to their amazement he easily dragged back the canoe, till it was near enough for him to jump in. Finding they could not keep him out, the men began to speak rudely to him, till the chief stopped them.
'Let him alone,' he said; 'he can bale out the water if it should come in;' so Blackskin sat in the seat of the man that bales, wondering within himself if his uncle had suspected anything when he had pulled back the canoe with the men in it. But as the chief said nothing, Blackskin supposed he had been thinking of something else at the time.
When they were close to the island, the chief waited till the canoe was lifted by a wave, and then he leaped on shore. He seized one sea-lion and killed it, and managed to seat himself on the back of another; but the sea-lion gave a sudden spring and threw the chief high into the air, and he fell down heavily striking his head against a rock, so that he died at once.
Blackskin had seen it all, and was sorry. He opened his bundle of clothes and put on his shirt and his hair ornament, while the rest stood round watching.
'I am the man who pulled out that branch and twisted that tree,' he said, 'and now, bring the canoe closer in!' As he spoke he walked the length of it upon the seats, which broke under him, so that those who were sitting on them were thrown to the bottom. Very frightened they all were when they heard the crash, lest he should revenge himself on them for the way they had treated him. But he did not even look at them, only jumped ashore as his uncle had done, and climbed straight up the tall cliff, hitting some sea-lions on the head as he passed. When he reached the big one which had killed his uncle, he slew that also, and carried them all to the shore, piling them up in the canoe.
HOW THE CHIEF'S DEATH WAS AVENGED.