Page:Myths and Legends of British North America.djvu/176

 salmon on it. But all the salmon they put on it disappeared. The skookums became afraid of the dish, and they threw it into the fire.

Suddenly, in just a moment, the skookums heard a baby's wail from the fire. There it was. They picked up the little thing hastily. They said, "How did it get there?" yet they were all skookums.

Now Coyote grew very rapidly. Soon he was running about. The skookums told him not to touch four baskets which stood there. But Coyote grew very rapidly indeed, and one day when they went out to get firewood, he opened them all. Out of the four baskets came flies, wasps, wind, and smoke. That is why flies and wasps always appear during the salmon season, and why the winds at that season always blow up river.

When Coyote had opened the baskets, he went out to the fish dam. He said, " Henceforth, there shall be no dam here, and the salmon shall ascend the river!"

Coyote led the salmon up the Columbia. Hair Seal went almost as far as the Falls of the Columbia with him. The Coyote pushed him in the water and told him that sometimes he could come up as far as that point.

Then Coyote sent the salmon into all the tributaries of the Columbia.

The broken dam at the mouth of the Fraser River now forms the cañon.