k of
their child's honorable ancestry and unblemished lineage.

After Big Joe died Hoolool would have been anchorless without that Totem
Pole. Its extraordinary carving, its crude but clever coloring, its
massed figures of animals, birds and humans, all designed and carved
out of the solid trunk of a single tree, meant a thousand times more to
her than it did to the travellers who, in their great "Klondike rush,"
thronged the decks of the northern-bound steamboats; than it did even
to those curio-hunters who despoil the Indian lodges of their ancient
wares, leaving their white man's coin in lieu of old silver bracelets
and rare carvings in black slate or finely woven cedar-root baskets.

Many times was she offered money for it, but Hoolool would merely shake
her head, and, with a half smile, turn away, giving no reason for her
refusal.

"The woman is like a mouse," those would-be purchasers would say, so
"Hoolool" she became, even to her little son, who called her the quaint
word as a white child would call its mother a pet name; and she in
turn called the little boy "Tenas," which means "Youngness"--the young
spring, the young day, the young moon--and he was all these blessed
things to her. But all the old-timers knew well why she would never
part with the Totem Pole.

"No use to coax her," they would tell the curio-hunters. "It is to her
what your family crest is to you. Would you sell your _crest_?"

So year after year the greedy-eyed collectors would go away
empty-handed, their coin in their pockets, and Hoolool's silent refusal
in their memories.

Yet how terribly she really needed their money she alone knew. To be
sure, she had her own firewood in the forest that crept almost to her
door, and in good seasons the salmon fishing was a great help. She
caught and smoked and dried this precious food, stowing it away for
use through the long winter months; but life was a continual struggle,
and Tenas was yet too young to help her in the battle.

Sometimes when the silver coins were very, very scarce, when her
shoulders ached with the cold, and her lips longed for tea and her mouth
for bread, when the smoked salmon revolted her, and her thin garments
grew thinner, she would go out and stand gazing at the Totem Pole, and
think of the great pile of coin that the last "collector" had offered
for it--a pile of coin that would fill all her needs until Tenas was
old enough to help her, to take his father's place at the