Big Joe had left her with but three precious possessions--"Tenas," their
boy, the warm, roomy firwood house of the thrifty Pacific Coast Indian
build, and the great Totem Pole that loomed outside at its northwestern
corner like a guardian of her welfare and the undeniable hallmark of
their child's honorable ancestry and unblemished lineage.
After Big Joe died Hoolool would have been anchorless without that Totem
Pole. Its extraordinary carving, its crude but clever coloring, its
massed figures of animals, birds and humans, all designed and carved
out of the solid trunk of a single tree, meant a thousand times more to
her than it did to the travellers who, in their great "Klondike rush,"
thronged the decks of the northern-bound steamboats; than it did even
to those curio-hunters who despoil the Indian lodges of their ancient
wares, leaving their white man's coin in lieu of old silver bracelets
and rare carvings in black slate or finely woven cedar-root baskets.
Many times was she offered money for it, but Hoolool would merely shake
her head, and, with a half smile, turn away, giving no reason for her
refusal.
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