k placing many tons of coal at the
mouth of the mine during the making of the road, the grade of which was
of two elevations, one from the mine a third of the distance,
terminating at a chute, from which the coal fell to cars on the lower
level, and from thence to the wharf. After the completion of the road
and its acceptance by the superintendent and the storage of a cargo of
coal on the wharf, the steamer Otter arrived, was loaded, and despatched
to San Francisco, being the first cargo of anthracite coal ever
unearthed on the Pacific seaboard. The superintendent, having notified
the directors at Victoria of his intention to return, they had appointed
me to assume the office. I was so engaged, preparing for the next
shipment on the steamer.

CHAPTER X.

My sojourn on the island was not without its vicissitudes and dangers,
and one of the latter I shall ever remember--one mingled, as it was,
with antics of Neptune, that capricious god of the ocean, and
resignation to what seemed to promise my end with all sublime things.
The stock of oil brought for lubricating cars and machinery having been
exhausted, I started a beautiful morning in a canoe with three Indians
for their settlement at the mouth of Skidegate River for a temporary
supply. After a few hours' paddling, gliding down the river serenely,
the wind suddenly arose, increasing in force as we approached the mouth
in the gulf. The high walls of the river sides afforded no opportunity
to land. The storm continued to increase in violence, bringing billows
of rough sea from the ocean, our canoe dancing like a feather, one
moment on a high crest by its skyward leap, and in the next to an abyss
deep, with walls of sea on either side, shutting out a view of the
horizon, while I, breathless with anxious hope, waited for the
succeeding wave to again lift the frail bark. The better to preserve
the equilibrium of the canoe--a conveyance treacherous at the
best--wrapped in a blanket in the bottom of the canoe I laid, looking
into the faces of the Indians, contorted by fright, and listened to
their peculiar and mournful death wail, "while the gale whistled aloft
his tempest tune."

I afterward learned that they had a superstition based upon the loss of
many of their tribe under like conditions, that escape was impossible.
The alarm and distrust in men, aquatic from birth, in their own waters
was to me appalling. I seemed to have "looked death in the face"--and
what