10. SKWOTILKWOLA'NA.
(From Similkameen.)
(Continued)In due time they came in sight of the chief's house, which towered up like a pillar of smoke. The chief saw them. The colt pretended to be a poor, lame traveller. He went along slowly. When he came near the house, he began to circle around. When he came very near, the chief's daughter's flute played by itself; when he went a distance off, it stopped. Both the girl and her father noticed it. The father was very curious, and came down to see the visitors. He invited the lad in, and went out to look at the colt. The lad said, "My horse is always that way. He has magic power. When he comes near any flute, it plays by itself." Four times the chief offered to buy the horse, but the lad refused. He said, "The music is louder and better, the nearer the horse comes. If he should run in a circle inside the house, the flute would play very nicely." The chief said, "Bring him in." He brought the horse in, and rode him around, and the flute played by itself louder than before. The lad said, "If I ride him around four times, the music will play so nicely that your daughter will fall asleep." The chief told him to do it. He rode around four times, and the girl fell asleep. Then the lad said, "If the door should be open, the music would be still sweeter." So the chief opened the door. The lad said, "If the girl should ride on the horse behind me, the flute would play so beautifully that you also would fall asleep." The chief put his daughter on the horse behind the lad. He was not afraid, for he knew that his black horse could catch anything. The chief fell asleep. Then the lad rode out of the house, and ran his horse like the wind. When they had gone quite a distance, the girl said, "Now my father awakes. Now he takes out his horse. Now he mounts the bay. Now he chases us." After awhile she said,"Now the bay is exhausted, and he mounts the black. He will surely overtake us and kill us." The lad said, "Yes, if my horse and I are not stronger than he and his horse." After a time she said, "My father is in sight. He is getting near. He waves his club. He is close to our horse's tail, and can almost touch us." The lad pulled a grass-stalk out of his belt, and struck his horse, which now bounded far ahead. Again the chief drew near. He struck his steed with the second grass-stalk, and they left the chief behind. He had used up his four stalks, and the chief was close on them again. Now he threw the comb1 down behind them, and there appeared a tract of gulches separating them from their pursuer. The chief surmounted these, and was close at their heels again. The lad threw down the clay, and it became a tract of mud. After a long time the chief passed through it, and caught up again. Then the lad threw down the thorn, and it became a thicket of haw bushes. When the chief had passed through it, and caught up, his horse and himself were seen to be torn and bleeding. Then the lad threw down the water, and it became a large lake. The black horse became exhausted in the water, and the chief had to turn back. He called out, "Now I know that you are Skwotilkwola'na; no other could have overcome me." The girl said, "We are safe. My father has returned. I will now be your wife." When they reached the lad's home, he was ashamed of the poor house, so he went to his helper in the lake, and wished for a wooden house and a garden, such as the whites have. He was given these, and he and his wife took up their abode there. He was known afterwards as Skwotilkwola'na, and became a powerful man. He had the tsoqemu's-fish as his guardian spirit. The colt disappeared when they reached home. He was only a manifestation of the tsoqemu's.2
1 Bolte and Polivka 2 : 140
2 This story was told to me in 1904 by an elderly man named Kwelte'sqet (Emptying-Cloud), who stated that he and his brother had heard their father tell it when they were very young, about fifty years previous. His brother remembered it best, and had several times related it to him in full.
