at you had sent me to do."

His father was in a terrible rage with him, and in the morning he sent
him out again, with new bow and arrows, saying: "Take care that you
don't forget this time."

The son went along saying to himself: "I mustn't forget, I mustn't
forget, I mustn't forget." But as soon as a bird flew across the path he
forgot all about what his father had said, and called to the bird in the
bird's own language, and the bird came and sat on the tree above him,
and sang to him so beautifully all day that the young man sat as if he
was dreaming till sunset.

"Oh dear!" said the young man, "what shall I do? My father will kill me
if I go back without anything to eat."

"Never mind," said the bird; "if he kills you, we shall give you
feathers and paint, and you can fly away and be a bird like ourselves."

When the young man reached the village he scarcely dared to go near his
father's wigwam; but his father saw him coming, and ran to meet him,
calling out in a hurry; "What have you brought? What have you brought?"

"I have brought nothing, father; nothing at all," said the boy.

His father was angrier than ever, and in the morning he said: "Come with
me. No more bow and arrows for you, and not a bite to eat, till I have
taught you to be a hunter like any other good Indian." So he took his
son into the middle of the forest, and there built for him a little
wigwam, with no door, only a little hole in the side.

"There!" said his father, when the young man was inside, and the wigwam
was laced up tight. "When you have lived and fasted in this wigwam for
twelve days, the spirit of a hunter will come into you."

Every day the young man's father came to see him, and every day the
young man begged for food, till at last, on the tenth day, he could only
beg in a whisper.

"No!" said his father. "In two days more you can both hunt and eat."

On the eleventh day, when the father came and spoke to his son, he got
no answer. Looking through the hole, he saw the lad lying as if he was
dead on the ground; but when he called out aloud his son awoke, and
whispered: "Father, bring me food! Give me some food!"

"No," said his father. "You have only one day more to wait. To-morrow
you will hunt and eat." And he went away home to the village.

On the twelfth day the father came loaded with meal and meat. As he
came near to the wigwam he heard a curious chirping sound, and when he
looked through the hole in the wigwam he