However, in the course of time the Indians became very prosperous, and a large village was built on the west side of the river. But while they were thus prospering, a gigantic skookum that lived upon the Tualatin River began to commit fearful depredations. His abode was on a little flat about two miles from the Indian village, but so long was his tongue that he was in the habit of reaching it forth and catching the people as he chose. By this, of course, the village was almost depopulated, and when, after a time, Tallapus returned, he was very angry to see that the benefits of his fishery had gone, not to the people, but to the wicked skookum. He therefore went forth to the monster and cried out to it, "O, wicked skookum; long enough have you been eating these people." And with one blow of his tomahawk cut off the offending tongue, and buried it under the rocks upon the west side of the falls; after which the people flourished. But so persistent is Indian superstition that even yet some of the old Indians say that when the canal was cut around the falls, that this was nothing more than laying bare the channel made for the tongue of the skookum. THE SKOOKUM AND THE WONDERFUL BOY. On the east side of the falls at about the site of Oregon City the Indians also made a large village, being nourished by the fishery, and had among them a great chief. But from the mountains on the east there came a frightful skookum, who destroyed the entire village and even the old chieftain and all the people, except the chief's wife and her unborn son.