Above
it all a million stars shone down from the cloudless heavens of a
perfect British Columbian night. After a while little Ta-la-pus fell
asleep, and when he awoke, dawn was just breaking. Someone had covered
him with a beautiful, white, new blanket, and as his young eyes opened
they looked straight into the kindly face of the great Squamish chief.
"We are all aweary, 'Tenas Tyee' (Little Chief)," he said. "The dancers
are tired, and we shall all sleep until the sun reaches midday, but my
guests cry for one more dance before sunrise. Will you dance for us, oh,
little Ta-la-pus?"
The boy sprang up, every muscle and sinew and nerve on the alert. The
moment of his triumph or failure had come.
"You have made me, even a boy like me, very welcome, O Great Tyee," he
said, standing erect as an arrow, with his slender, dark chin raised
manfully. "I have eaten of your kloshe muck-a-muck (very good food),
and it has made my heart and my feet very skookum (strong). I shall do
my best to dance and please you." The boy was already dressed in the
brilliant buckskin costume his mother had spent so many hours in making,
and his precious wolfskin was flung over his arm.
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