e, O, Boston tyee!" quoth the Siwash, studying me with dusky
eyes, "is a mighty passion. Know you that our first circulating medium
was shells, a small perforated shell not unlike a very opaque quill
toothpick, tapering from the middle, and cut square at both ends. We
string it in many strands and hang it around the neck of one we
love--namely, each man his own neck. And with this we buy what our
hearts desire. Hiaqua, we call it, and he who has most hiaqua is wisest
and best of all the dwellers on the Sound.

"Now, in old times there dwelt here an old man, a mighty hunter and
fisherman. And he worshipped hiaqua. And always this old man thought
deeply and communed with his wisdom, and while he waited for elk or
salmon he took advice within himself from his demon--he talked with
tamanous. And always his question was, 'How may I put hiaqua in my
purse?' But never had Tamanous revealed to him the secret. There loomed
Tacoma, so white and glittering that it seemed to stare at him very
terribly and mockingly, and to know of his shameful avarice, and how it
led him to take from starving women their cherished lip and nose jewels
of hiaqua, and give them in return tough scraps of dried elk-meat and
salmon. His own peculiar tamanous was the elk. One day he was hunting
on the sides of Tacoma, and in that serene silence his tamanous began
to talk to his soul. 'Listen!' said tamanous--and then the great secret
of untold wealth was revealed to him. He went home and made his
preparations, told his old, ill-treated squaw he was going for a long
hunt, and started off at eventide. The next night he camped just below
the snows of Tacoma, but sunrise and he struck the summit together, for
there, tamanous had revealed to him, was hiaqua--hiaqua that should
make him the greatest and richest of his tribe. He looked down and saw
a hollow covered with snow, save at the centre, where a black lake lay
deep in a well of purple rock, and at one end of the lake were three
large stones or monuments. Down into the crater sprang the miser, and
the morning sunshine followed him. He found the first stone shaped like
a salmon head; the second like a kamas root, and the third, to his
great joy, was the carven image of an elk's head. This was his own
tamanous, and right joyous was he at the omen, so taking his elk-horn
pick he began to dig right sturdily at the foot of the monument. At the
sound of the very first blow he made, thirteen gigantic otters came