It
is dusk on the Lost Lagoon,
And we two dreaming the dusk away,
Beneath the drift of a twilight grey—
Beneath the drowse of an ending day
And the curve of a golden moon.
It
is dark in the Lost Lagoon,
And gone are the depths of haunting blue,
The grouping gulls, and the old canoe,
The singing firs, and the dusk and—you,
And gone is the golden moon.
O!
lure of the Lost Lagoon—
I dream tonight that my paddle blurs
The purple shade where the seaweed stirs—
I hear the call of the singing firs
In the hush of the golden moon.
FOR
many minutes we stood silently, leaning on the western
rail of the bridge as we watched the sun set across
that beautiful little basin of water known as Coal Harbor.
I have always resented that jarring, unattractive name,
for years ago, when I first plied paddle across the
gunwale of a light little canoe that idled about its
margin, I named the sheltered little cove the Lost Lagoon.
This was just to please my own fancy, for as that perfect
summer month drifted on, the ever-restless tides left
the harbor devoid of water at my favorite canoeing hour,
and my pet idling place was lost for many days—hence
my fancy to call it the Lost Lagoon. But the chief,
Indian-like, immediately adopted the name, at least
when he spoke of the place to me, and as we watched
the sun slip behind the rim of firs, he expressed the
wish that his dugout were here instead of lying beached
at the farther side of the park.
“If
canoe was here, you and I we paddle close to shores
’round your Lost Lagoon: we make track just like
half moon. Then we paddle under this bridge, and go
channel between Deadman’s Island and park. Then
[Page 61] ’round where cannon
speak time at nine o’clock. Then ’cross
Inlet to Indian side of Narrows.”
I turned to look eastward, following
in fancy the course he had sketched; the waters were
still as the footsteps of the oncoming twilight, and,
floating in a pool of soft purple, Deadman’s
Island rested like a large
circle of candle moss.
“Have you ever been on
it?” he asked as he caught my gaze centering on
the irregular outline of the island pines.
“I have prowled the length
and depth of it,” I told him. “Climbed over
every rock on its shores, crept under every tangled
growth of its interior, explored its overgrown trails,
and more than once nearly got lost in its very heart.”
“Yes,” he half laughed,
“it pretty wild; not much good for anything.”
“People seem to think
it valuable,” I said. “There is a lot of
litigation—of fighting going on now about it.”
“Oh! that the way always,”
he said as though speaking of a long accepted fact.
“Always fight over that place. Hundreds of years
ago they fight about it; Indian people; they say hundreds
of years to come everybody will still fight—never
be settled what that place is, who it belong to, who
has right to it. No, never settle. Deadman’s Island
always mean fight for someone.”
“So the Indians fought
amongst themselves about it?” I remarked, seemingly
without guile, although my ears tingled for the legend
I knew was coming.
“Fought like lynx at close
quarters,” he answered. “Fought, killed
each other, until the island ran with blood redder than
that sunset, and the sea water about it was stained
flame color—it was then, my people say, that the
scarlet fire-flower was first seen growing along this
coast.”
“It is a beautiful color—the
fire-flower,” I said.
“It should be fine color,
for it was born and grew from the hearts of fine tribes-people—very
fine people,” he emphasized. [Page 62]
We crossed to the eastern rail
of the bridge, and stood watching the deep shadows that
gathered slowly and silently about the island; I have
seldom looked upon anything more peaceful.
The chief sighed. “We
have no such men now, no fighters like those men, no
hearts, no courage like theirs. But I tell you the story;
you understand it then. Now all peace; tonight all good
tillicums; even dead man’s spirit does not fight
now, but long time after it happen those spirits fought.”
“And the legend?”
I ventured.
“Oh! yes,” he replied,
as if suddenly returning to the present from out a far
country in the realm of time. “Indian people,
they call it the ‘Legend of the Island of Dead
Men.’”
“There was war everywhere.
Fierce tribes from the northern coast, savage tribes
from the south all met here and battled and raided,
burned and captured, tortured and killed their enemies.
The forests smoked with camp fires, the Narrows were
choked with war canoes, and the Sagalie Tyee—He
who is a man of peace—turned His face away from
His Indian children. About this island there was dispute
and contention. The medicine men from the North claimed
it as their chanting ground. The medicine men from the
South laid equal claim to it. Each wanted it as the
stronghold of their witchcraft, their magic. Great bands
of these medicine men met on the small space, using
every sorcery in their power to drive their opponents
away. The witch doctors of the North made their camp
on the northern rim of the island; those from the South
settled along the southern edge, looking towards what
is now the great city of Vancouver. Both factions danced,
chanted, burned their magic powders, built their magic
fires, beat their magic rattles, but neither would give
way, yet neither conquered. About them, on the waters,
on the mainlands, raged the warfare of their respective
tribes—the Sagalie Tyee had forgotten His Indian
children.
“After many months, the
warriors on both sides weakened. They said the incantations
of the rival medicine men were bewitching [Page
63] them, were making their hearts like children’s,
and their arms nerveless as women’s. So friend
and foe arose as one man and drove the medicine men
from the island, hounded them down the Inlet, herded
them through the Narrows and banished them out to sea,
where they took refuge on one of the outer islands of
the gulf. Then the tribes once more fell upon each other
in battle.
“The warrior blood of
the North will always conquer. They are the stronger,
bolder, more alert, more keen. The snows and the ice
of their country make swifter pulse than the sleepy
suns of the South can awake in a man; their muscles
are of sterner stuff, their endurance greater. Yes,
the northern tribes will always be victors.*
But the craft and the strategy of the southern tribes
are hard things to battle against. While those of the
North followed the medicine men farther out to sea to
make sure of their banishment, those from the South
returned under cover of night and seized the women and
children and the old, enfeebled men in their enemy’s
camp, transported them all to the Island of Dead Men,
and there held them as captives. Their war canoes circled
the island like a fortification, through which drifted
the sobs of the imprisoned women, the mutterings of
the aged men, the wail of little children.
“Again and again the men
of the North assailed that circle of canoes, and again
and again were repulsed. The air was thick with poisoned
arrows, the water stained with blood. But day by day
the circle of southern canoes grew thinner and thinner;
the northern arrows were telling and truer of aim. Canoes
drifted everywhere, empty, or worse still, manned only
by dead men. The pick of the southern warriors had already
fallen, when their greatest Tyee mounted a large rock
on the eastern shore. Brave and unmindful of a thousand
weapons aimed at his heart, he uplifted his [Page
64] hand, palm outward—the signal for
conference. Instantly every northern arrow was lowered,
and every northern ear listened for his words.
“‘Oh! men of the
upper coast,’ he said, ‘you are more numerous
than we are; your tribe is larger, your endurance greater.
We are growing hungry, we are growing less in numbers.
Our captives—your women and children and old men—have
lessened, too, our stores of food. If you refuse our
terms we will yet fight to the finish. Tomorrow we will
kill all our captives before your eyes, for we can feed
them no longer, or you can have your wives, your mothers,
your fathers, your children, by giving us for each and
every one of them one of your best and bravest young
warriors, who will consent to suffer death in their
stead. Speak! You have your choice.’
“In the northern canoes
scores and scores of young warriors leapt to their feet.
The air was filled with glad cries, with exultant shouts.
The whole world seemed to ring with the voices of those
young men who [Page 65] called loudly,
with glorious courage:
“‘Take me, but give
me back my old father.’
“‘Take me, but spare
to my tribe my little sister.’
“‘Take me, but release
my wife and boy-baby.’
“So the compact was made.
Two hundred heroic, magnificent young men paddled up
to the island, broke through the fortifying circle of
canoes and stepped ashore. They flaunted their eagle
plumes with the spirit and boldness of young gods. Their
shoulders were erect, their step was firm, their hearts
strong. Into their canoes they crowded the two hundred
captives. Once more their women sobbed, their old men
muttered, their children wailed, but those young copper-colored
gods never flinched, never faltered. Their weak and
their feeble were saved. What mattered to them such
a little thing as death?
“The released captives
were quickly surrounded by their own people, but the
flower of their splendid nation was in the hands of
their enemies, those valorous young men who thought
so little of life that they willingly, gladly laid it
down to serve and to save those they loved and cared
for. Amongst them were war-tried warriors who had fought
fifty battles, and boys not yet full grown, who were
drawing a bow string for the first time, but their hearts,
their courage, their self-sacrifice were as one.
“Out before a long file
of southern warriors they stood. Their chins uplifted,
their eyes defiant, their breasts bared. Each leaned
forward and laid his weapons at his feet, then stood
erect, with empty hands, and laughed forth their challenge
to death. A thousand arrows ripped the air, two hundred
gallant northern throats flung forth a death cry exultant,
triumphant as conquering kings—then two hundred
fearless northern hearts ceased to beat.
“But in the morning the
southern tribes found the spot where they fell peopled
with flaming fire-flowers. Dread terror seized upon
them. They abandoned the island, and when night again
shrouded them they manned their canoes and noiselessly
slipped through the Narrows, turned their bows southward
and this coast line knew them no more.”
“What glorious men!”
I half whispered as the chief concluded the strange
legend.
“Yes, men!” he echoed.
“The white people call it Deadman’s Island.
That is their way; but we of the Squamish call it The
Island of Dead Men.”
The clustering pines and the
outlines of the island’s margin were now dusky
and indistinct. Peace, peace lay over the waters, and
the purple of the summer twilight had turned to grey,
but I knew that in the depths of the undergrowth on
Deadman’s Island there blossomed a flower of flaming
beauty; its colors were veiled in the coming nightfall,
but somewhere down in the sanctuary of its petals pulsed
the heart’s blood of many and valiant men. [Page
66]
*
Note.—It would almost seem that the chief knew
that wonderful poem of “The Khan’s,”
“The Men of the Northern Zone,” wherein
he says:
If
ever a Northman lost a throne
Did
the conqueror come from the South?
Nay,
the North shall ever be free. . . etc. [back]
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