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“I suppose you heard of him from Quebec, through, perhaps, some of the French priests,” I remarked.

“No, no,” he contradicted hurriedly. “Not from East; we hear it from over the Pacific, from the place they call Russia.” But who conveyed the news or by what means it came he could not further enlighten me. But a strange thing happened to the Squamish family about this time. There was a large blood connection, but the only male member living was a very old warrior, the hero of many battles, and the possessor of the talisman. On his death-bed his women of three generations gathered about him; his wife, his sisters, his daughters, his granddaughters, but not one man, nor yet a boy of his own blood stood by to speed his departing warrior spirit to the land of peace and plenty.

“The charm cannot rest in the hands of women,” he murmured almost with his last breath. “Women may not war and fight other nations or other tribes; women are for the peaceful lodge and for the leading of little children. They are for holding baby hands, teaching baby feet to walk. No, the charm cannot rest with you, women. I have no brother, no cousin, no son, no grandson, and the charm must not go to a lesser warrior than I. None of our tribe, nor of any tribe on the coast, ever conquered me. The charm must go to one as unconquerable as I have been. When I am dead send it across the great salt chuck, to the victorious ‘Frenchman’; they call him Napoleon Bonaparte.” They were his last words.

The older women wished to bury the charm with him, but the younger women, inspired with the spirit of their generation, were determined to send it over seas. “In the grave it will be dead,” they argued. “Let it still live on. Let it help some other fighter to greatness and victory.”

As if to confirm their decision, the next day a small sealing vessel anchored in the Inlet. All the men aboard spoke Russian, save two thin, dark, agile sailors, who kept aloof from the crew and conversed in another language. These two came ashore with part of the crew and talked in French with a wandering Hudson’s Bay trapper, who often lodged with the Squamish people. Thus the women, who yet mourned over their dead warrior, knew these two strangers to be from the land where the great “Frenchman” was fighting against the world.

Here I interrupted the chief. “How came the Frenchmen in a Russian sealer?” I asked.

“Captives,” he replied. “Almost slaves, and hated by their captors, as the majority always hate the few. So the women drew those two Frenchmen apart from the rest and told them the story of the bone of the sea-serpent, urging them to carry it back to their own country and give it to the great ‘Frenchman’ who was as courageous and as brave as their dead leader.

“The Frenchmen hesitated; the talisman might affect them, they said; might jangle their own brains, so that on their return to Russia they would not have the sagacity to plan an escape to their own country; might disjoint their bodies, so that their feet and hands would be useless, and they would become as weak as children. But the women assured them that the charm only worked its magical powers over a man’s enemies, that the ancient medicine men had ‘bewitched’ it with this quality. So the Frenchmen took it and promised that if it were in the power of man they would convey it to ‘the Emperor.’

“As the crew boarded the sealer, the women watching from the shore observed strange contortions seize many of the men; some fell on the deck; some crouched, shaking as with palsy; some writhed for a moment, then fell limp and seemingly boneless; only the two Frenchmen stood erect and strong and vital–the Squamish talisman had already overcome their foes. As the little sealer set sail up the gulf she was commanded by a crew of two Frenchmen–men who had entered these waters as captives, who were leaving them as conquerors. The palsied Russians were worse than useless, and what became of them the chief could not state; presumably they were flung overboard, and by some trick of a kindly fate the Frenchmen at last reached the coast of France.

“Tradition is so indefinite about their movements subsequent to sailing out of the Inlet, that even the ever-romantic and vividly colored imaginations of the Squamish people have never supplied the details of this beautifully childish, yet strangely historical fairy tale. But the voices of the trumpets of war, the beat of drums throughout Europe heralded back to the wilds of the Pacific Coast forests the intelligence that the great Squamish ‘charm’ eventually reached the person of Napoleon; that from this time onward his career was one vast victory, that he won battle after battle, conquered nation after nation, and but for the direst calamity that could befall a warrior would eventually have been master of the world.”

“What was this calamity, Chief?” I asked, amazed at his knowledge of the great historical soldier and strategist.

The chief’s voice again lowered to a whisper–his face was almost rigid with intentness as he replied:

“He lost the Squamish charm–lost it just before one great fight with the English people.”

I looked at him curiously; he had been telling me the oddest mixture of history and superstition, of intelligence and ignorance, the most whimsically absurd, yet impressive, tale I ever heard from Indian lips.

“What was the name of the great fight–did you ever hear it?” I asked, wondering how much he knew of events which took place at the other side of the world a century agone.

“Yes,” he said, carefully, thoughtfully; “I hear the name sometime in London when I there. Railroad station there–same name.”

“Was it Waterloo?” I asked.

He nodded quickly, without a shadow of hesitation. “That the one,” he replied; “that’s it, Waterloo.”