Christianity has not entirely conquered superstition. In 1929 in a timber camp far up the valley between the Coast and Cascade ranges a secre or more of our Indians were at work; 1929 was the peak year of the telegraph-pole business, everyone was contented, and the work went with a swing. One evening a squaw sat basket-making in her cabin. She got up to put wood in the stove, and saw on the dirt floor a small black lizard some two inches long. She was petrified with fear for a while; then she called to the men around. Within an incredibly short time the men harnessed their wagons, loaded up squaws and papooses, and went on their way. The dreaded black lizard had driven them forth into the night. Twenty-five miles through the white mists along the river bank they drove, and soon after dawn they reached their The legend has, it appea handed down for many gene The black lizard will eat out your heart.
Next day one of their number who did not believe the legend was sent back to the logging camp to bring in a lizard, safely bottled, for inspection by the old men of the tribe.
What rites or ceremonies they would have performed to secure immunity cannot be told, for the lizard did not reach them. The unbeliever sat in the silence of the deserted cabin at the timber camp. As the hours passed he grew more and more nervous. Towards the small hours fear overtook him, he rushed from the cabin, and travelled through the night once more. The Indians never returned to that timber camp.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.