"Elk-meat, too, he sold to his tribe. This brought him pelf, but, alas, for his greed, the pelf came slowly. Waters and woods were rich in game. All the Squallyamish were hunters and fishers, though none so skilled as he. They were rarely absolutely in want, and, when they came to him for supplies, they were far too poor in hiaqua. "So the old man thought deeply, and communed with his wisdom, and, while he waited for fish or beast, he took advice within himself from his demon--he talked with Tamanous. And always the question was, 'How may I put hiaqua in my purse?' "Tamanous never revealed to him that far to the north, beyond the waters of Whulge, are tribes with their under lip pierced with a fish-bone, among whom hiaqua is plenty as salmonberries are in the woods that time in midsummer salmon fin it along the reaches of Whulge. "But the more Tamanous did not reveal to him these mysteries of nature, the more he kept dreamily prying into his own mind, endeavoring to devise some scheme by which he might discover a treasure-trove of the beloved shell. His life seemed wasted in the patient, frugal industry, which only brought slow, meager gains. He wanted the splendid elation of vast wealth and the excitement of sudden wealth. His own peculiar tamanous was the elk. Elk was also his totem, the cognizance of his freemasonry with those of his own family, and their family friends in other tribes. Elk, therefore, were every way identified with his life; and he hunted them farther and farther up through the forests on the flanks of Tacoma, hoping that some day his tamanous would speak in the dying groan of one of them, and gasp out the secret of the mines of hiaqua, his heart's desire. "Tacoma was so white and glittering, that it seemed to stare at him very terribly and mockingly, and to know his shameful avarice, and how it led him to take from starving women their cherished lip and nose jewels of hiaqua, and to give them in return only tough scraps of dried elk-meat and salmon. When men are shabby, mean, and grasping, they feel reproached for their groveling lives by the unearthliness of nature's beautiful objects, and they hate flowers and sunsets, mountains and the quiet stars of heaven. "Nevertheless," continued Hamitchou, "this wise old fool of my legend went on stalking elk along the sides of Tacoma, ever dreaming of wealth. And at last, as he was hunting near the snows one day, one very clear and beautiful day of late summer, when sunlight was magically disclosing far distances, and making all nature supernaturally visible and proximate, Tamanous began to work in the soul of the miser.