"The only shadow on the joy of it all was war, for the tribe of the great Tyee was at war with the Upper Coast Indians, those who lived north, near what is named by the Paleface as the port of Prince Rupert. Giant war canoes slipped along the entire coast, war parties paddled up and down, war songs broke the silences of the nights, hatred, vengeance, strife, horror festered everywhere like sores on the surface of the earth. But the great Tyee, after warring for weeks, turned and laughed at the battle and the bloodshed, for he had been victor in every encounter, and he could well afford to leave the strife for a brief week and feast in his daughters' honor, nor permit any mere enemy to come between him and the traditions of his race and household. So he turned insultingly deaf ears to their war cries; he ignored with arrogant indifference their paddle dips that encroached within his own coast waters, and he prepared, as a great Tyee should, to royally entertain his tribesmen in honor of his daughters. "But seven suns before the great feast, these two maidens came before him, hand clasped in hand. "'Oh! our father,' they said, 'may we speak?' "'Speak, my daughters, my girls with the eyes of April, the hearts of June'" (early spring and early summer would be the more accurate Indian phrasing). "'Some day, Oh! our father, we may mother a man child, who may grow to be just such a powerful Tyee as you are, and for this honor that may some day be ours we have come to crave a favor of you--you, Oh! our father.' "'It is your privilege at this celebration to receive any favor your hearts may wish,' he replied graciously, placing his fingers beneath their girlish chins. 'The favor is yours before you ask it, my daughters.' "'Will you, for our sakes, invite the great northern hostile tribe--the tribe you war upon--to this, our feast?' they asked fearlessly. "'To a peaceful feast, a feast in the honor of women?' he exclaimed incredulously. "'So we would desire it,' they answered.