trange
creature sprawled and clambered out upon a solitary rock that stood
partly above the water.

The Laugh-maker was hairless and wrinkled like a new-born child; it had
the funniest feet, or hands, or flippers, with which it tried to walk,
but only tumbled and flopped about. In the water it was graceful enough,
but on dry land so ungainly and ridiculous that the vast concourse of
Bears was thrown into fits of hysterical laughter.

"Ha, ha, ha! Waugh, waugh!" they roared, lifting their ugly long muzzles
and opening their gaping jaws. Some of them could no longer hold on to
the boughs of the trees, or the rocks on which they had perched, and
came tumbling down on the heads of the crowd, adding much to the fun.
Every motion of the little "Laugh-maker" produced fresh roars of
immoderate laughter.

At last the Bears grew weak and helpless with laughing. Hundreds of them
sprawled out upon the sand, quite unable to rise. Then the old man again
advanced and cried out:

"E-ha-we-cha-ye-la, wan-na e-ha un-ta-pe ktay do! (Laugh-maker, we are
almost dead with laughing!)" Upon this the little creature swam back
into deep water and disappeared.

Now the stranger was not at all amused and in fact could see nothing to
laugh at. When all the Bears had got up and dispersed to their homes he
came down from the tree with his little son, and the child wished to
imitate his great-grandfather Bear. He went out alone on the sandy beach
and began to call in his piping voice:

"Laugh-maker, we are come to laugh!"

When he had called four times, the little creature again showed its
smooth black head above the water.

"Ha, ha, ha! Why don't you laugh, papa? It is so funny!" the boy cried
out breathlessly.

But his father looked on soberly while the thing went through all its
usual antics, and the little boy laughed harder and harder, until at
last he rolled and rolled on the sandy beach, almost dead with
laughter.

"Papa," he gasped, "if you do not stop this funny thing I shall die!"

Then the father picked up his bow and strung it. He gave one more look
at his boy, who was gasping for breath; then he fitted a sharp arrow to
the bow and pierced the little Laugh-maker to the heart. He went out and
took the skin, and they returned in silence to the camp of the Bears.

Now the next time that the herald called upon the Bears to "go
a-laughing," the skin of the Laugh-maker was almost dry, but they knew
nothing of it. They went away a