Every morning they went after salmon. They put on their skins. Then they came home and brought three or four salmon on the backs of each. They shook themselves, took off their skins, and hung them up.
Presently he told his son that he wanted to go away. Then they brought out a sack and put grizzly-bear fat into it. When the bottom of it was covered they put in mountain-goat fat. There was a layer of that also. After that they put in deer fat, as well as moose fat. They put in meat of all the mainland animals.
After it was filled, and they had laced it up they gave him a cane. It was so large he did not think he could carry it. And, when he started to put it on his back, his son said to him: “Push yourself up from the ground with your cane.” Then he did as directed. He got up easily. [[335]]
Then he gave other directions to his father. “You will travel four nights. When you camp for the night stick the cane into the ground and in the morning go in the direction toward which it points. Stick the cane into the ground where you come out. After you have taken those things out of the sack, take that over also and lay it near the cane. Those things are only lent you.”
At once he set out. And, when evening came, he stuck the cane into the ground. But the cane pointed in the direction from which he had come, and he went toward it. And, when evening again came, he stuck the cane in, and in the morning the cane was again pointing backward; and again he followed it.
After he had camped four nights he came out. And he stuck in the cane at the edge of the woods. And, while they were again in a starving condition, he came home. They were unable to bring out his sack. And, when a crowd took hold of it, they got it off [the canoe], and, after they had taken the best parts of all kinds of animals out of it, he took the sack back to the cane and laid it near by.
Then they also began to buy that. With what he got in exchange he became a chief.[2] With what he got in exchange he also potlatched. After two nights had passed he went to see the place where he had left the sack. He saw that they had taken it away.
Since wolves are not found upon the Queen Charlotte islands, this is necessarily a mainland story, probably Tsimshian. [[336]]
[1] I am not quite certain of the correctness of this translation of sqēnā′wasʟīa. [↑]