he grizzly
bear out of the big end, and made him master over all the others. He made the grizzly so strong that he feared him himself, and would have to go up on the top of the mountain out of sight of the forest to sleep at night, lest the grizzly, who, as will be seen, was much more strong and cunning then than now, should assail him in his sleep. Afterwards, the Great Spirit wishing to remain on earth, and make the sea and some more land, he converted Mount Shasta by a great deal of labour into a wigwam, and built a fire in the centre of it and made it a pleasant home. After that his family came down, and they all have lived in the mountain ever since. They say that before the white man came they could see the fire ascending from the mountain by night and the smoke by day, every time they chose to look in that direction.
This, I have no doubt, is true. Mount Shasta is even now, in one sense of the word, an active volcano. Sometimes only hot steam, bringing up with it a fine powdered sulphur, staining yellow the snow and ice, is thrown off. Then again boiling water, clear at one time and then muddy enough, boils up through the fissures and flows off into a little pool within a hundred feet of the summit. It is very unsettled and uncertain. Sometimes you hear most unearthly noises even a mile from the little crater, as you ascend, and when you approach, a tumult like a thousand engines with whistles of as many keys; then again you find the mountain on its good behaviour and sober enough.
