He went off, entered his mother’s side of the house, laid his hand on his mother’s head, and said to his mother: “The beaver dam drifted down upon my elder brother. One piece drifted into his neck. He dropped dead without speaking a word.” Then she said: “Alas! my child.” “Stop! we do not want him spoken of before the people. Do not say a word.”
When she had wakened the people in the house by her exclamation, they asked her: “What made you say that?” and she said, “I dreamed of something terrible. I dreamed that a beaver dam floated into my eldest son and he dropped dead without saying a word. That was what made me cry out.”
After he had lain flat on the floor near his mother, and midnight had come, he heard some one talking with his elder brother’s wife. When it was near daylight, they stopped whispering. Then he crept over to them. And as the man slept he cut off his head.
After they had sat there in the woods for a while day came, and they went home. They had a real human head in their hands. The youngest brother put his head above the door. Out of it blood oozed in drops.
The chief’s son [in Metlakahtla] was lost, and they were looking for him everywhere. They stopped inquiring for him. The town of Metlakahtla lay there. By and by a north wind began to blow. The sea surface froze, even to Qꜝadō′. They began to walk to and fro to each other on the ice.
Very early one morning a slave went to the town of Qꜝadō′ for live coals. “Enter the middle house,” they said to him. And when he went in blood dropped upon his feet. When he pushed the charcoal into the fire, he turned his head around from looking at the side opposite [[167]]the door. Above the door, to his astonishment, he saw the head of the chief’s son who had disappeared. He recognized him by the abalone-shell earrings he wore.
He picked up the live coals and started away with them. When he came to the ice he threw the coals away. Then he returned. Though he had looked right at it, he did not believe himself. And he went in again, and again he put the coals into the fire. After he had looked about the house for a while he fastened his eyes upon it again. It was really the chief’s son. Then he went away with the burning coals.
When he was halfway back he also threw those coals away. He thought: “I must have been mistaken.” Then he went back again. He entered, and he put [fresh charcoal] into the fire. And as soon as he had done so, he looked. It was truly he. He saw with his eyes. Then he started off with the burning coals.
Just outside he threw them away. At once he ran off shouting. “The head of the chief’s son who disappeared forever is stuck up in this house,” he shouted out as he ran. As soon as they heard his voice from the town they did not delay. They put on their armor, shields, helmets. And they ran to fight with war spears and bows and arrows. At once they fought with Sqäg̣ał’s children.
She and her mother were the only ones from among her kindred who were saved. Her brothers, however, they destroyed. They (the two women) came to live in a branch house in front of a hill behind the town. She lived there some time with her daughter. Every evening she cried. They went to bed, and they continued to lie there.