r me to give my daughter to any but a
chief's son." However, he called his eldest daughter and said to her,
"This young man wants you for a wife."

The eldest daughter thought in her mind: "I am very handsome, and one
day a chief's son will come and ask for me; but my clothes are old and
common. I will deceive this young man." So she said to him: "If you want
me for your wife, get me a big piece of the fine red cloth that the
white men bring to the fort far down the river."

The young man was brave, as we have said, and he took his birch-bark
canoe and paddled down the river day after day for seven days, only
stopping to paddle up the creeks where the beavers build their dams; and
when he stopped at the foot of the great rapids, where the white men lay
behind stone walls in fear of the Iroquois, his canoe was deep and heavy
with the skins of the beavers. The white men were at war with the
Indians, and, though he was no Iroquois, his heart grew cold in his
breast. But he did not tremble; he marched in at the watergate, and the
white men were glad to see his beaver skins, and gave him much red cloth
for them; so his heart grew warm again, and he paddled up the river with
his riches. Twelve days he paddled, for the current was strong against
him; but at last he stood outside the old lodge, and called the chief's
eldest daughter to come out and be his wife. When she saw how red was
his load, she was glad and sorry--glad because of the cloth, and sorry
because of the man.

"But where are the beads?" said she.

"You asked me for no beads," said he.

"Fool!" said she. "Was it ever heard that a chief's daughter married in
clothing of plain red cloth? If you want me for your wife, bring me a
double handful of the glass beads that the Frenchmen bring from over the
sea--red and white and blue and yellow beads!"

So the brave paddled off in his canoe down the river. When he came to
the beavers' creeks he found the dams and the lodges; but the beavers
were gone. He followed them up the creeks till the water got so shallow
that the rocks tore holes in his canoe, and he had to stop and strip
fresh birch-bark to mend the holes; but at last he found where the
beavers were building their new dams; and he loaded his canoe with their
skins, and paddled away and shot over the rapids, and came to the white
man's fort. The white men passed their hands over the skins and felt
that they were good, and gave him a double handful of beads. T