"The miser could hear the sound of splashing water as he struggled upward through the snow, now melted and yielding. It was a long hour of harsh toil and much backsliding before he reached the rim, and turned to take one more view of this valley of good fortune.
"As he looked, a thick mist began to rise from the lake centre, where the otters were splashing. Under the mist grew a cylinder of black cloud, utterly hiding the water.
"Terrible are storms in the mountains; but in this looming mass was a terror more dread than any hurricane of ruin ever bore within its wild vortexes. Tamanoüs was in that black cylinder, and as it strode forward, chasing in the very path of the miser, he shuddered, for his wealth and his life were in danger.
"However, it might be but a common storm. Sunlight was bright as ever overhead in heaven, and all the lovely world below lay dreamily fair, in that afternoon of summer, at the feet of the rich man, who now was hastening to be its king. He stepped from the crater edge and began his descent.
"Instantly the storm overtook him. He was thrown down by its first assault, flung over a rough bank of iciness, and lay at the foot torn and bleeding, but clinging still to his precious burden. Each hand still held its five strings of hiaqua. In each hand he bore a nation's ransom. He staggered to his feet against the blast. Utter night was around him,—night as if daylight had forever perished, had never come into being from chaos. The roaring of the storm had also deafened and bewildered him with its wild uproar.
"Present in every crash and thunder of the gale was a growing undertone, which the miser well knew to be the voice of Tamanoüs. A deadly shuddering shook him. Heretofore that potent Unseen had been his friend and guide; there had been awe, but no terror, in his words. Now the voice of Tamanoüs was inarticulate, but the miser could divine in that sound an unspeakable threat of wrath and vengeance. Floating upon this undertone were sharper tamanoüs voices, shouting and screaming always sneeringly, 'Ha, ha, hiaqua!—ha, ha, ha!'
"Whenever the miser essayed to move and continue his descent, a whirlwind caught him, and with much ado tossed him hither and thither, leaving him at last flung and imprisoned in a pinching crevice, or buried to the eyes in a snowdrift, or bedded upside down on a shaggy boulder, or gnawed by lacerating lava jaws. Sharp torture the old man was encountering, but he held fast to his hiaqua.
"The blackness grew ever deeper and more crowded with perdition; the din more impish, demoniac, and devilish; the laughter more appalling; and the miser more and more exhausted with vain buffeting. He determined to propitiate exasperated Tamanoüs with a sacrifice. He threw into the black cylinder storm his left-handful, five strings of precious hiaqua."
"Somewhat long-winded is thy legend, Hamitchou, Great Medicine-Man of the Squallyamish," quoth I. "Why didn't the old fool drop his wampum,—shell out, as one might say,—and make tracks?"
"Well, well!" continued Hamitchou; "when the miser had thrown away his first handful of hiaqua, there was a momentary lull in elemental war, and he heard the otters puffing around him invisible. Then the storm renewed, blacker, louder, harsher, crueller than before, and over the dread undertone of the voice of Tamanoüs, tamanoüs voices again screamed, 'Ha, ha, ha, hiaqua!' and it seemed as if tamanoüs hands, or the paws of the demon otters, clutched at the miser's right-handful and tore at his shoulder and waist belts.