cted her crime, would kill her.
The husband, however, eluded her project by his readiness and decision.
He narrowly watched her movements. One day he secretly followed her
footsteps into the forest, and having concealed himself behind a tree,
he soon beheld a tall young man approach and lead away his wife. His
arrows were in his hands, but he did not use them. He thought he would
kill her the moment she returned.
Meantime, he went home and sat down to think. At last he came to the
determination of quitting her forever, thinking that her own conscience
would punish her sufficiently, and relying on her maternal feelings to
take care of the two children, who were boys, he immediately took up
his arms and departed.
When the wife returned she was disappointed in not finding her husband,
for she had now concerted her plan, and intended to have dispatched
him. She waited several days, thinking he might have been led away by
the chase, but finding he did not return, she suspected the true cause.
Leaving her two children in the lodge, she told them she was going a
short distance and would return. She then fled to her paramour and came
back no more.
The children, thus abandoned, soon made way with the food left in the
lodge, and were compelled to quit it in search of more. The eldest boy,
who was of an intrepid temper, was strongly attached to his brother,
frequently carrying him when he became weary, and gathering all the
wild fruit he saw. They wandered deeper and deeper into the forest,
losing all traces of their former habitation, until they were
completely lost in its mazes.
The eldest boy had a knife, with which he made a bow and arrows, and was
thus enabled to kill a few birds for himself and brother. In this manner
they continued to pass on, from one piece of forest to another, not
knowing whither they were going. At length they saw an opening through
the woods, and were shortly afterward delighted to find themselves on
the borders of a large lake. Here the elder brother busied himself in
picking the seed pods of the wild rose, which he reserved as food. In
the mean time, the younger brother amused himself by shooting arrows in
the sand, one of which happened to fall into the lake. Panigwun,[82] the
elder brother, not willing to lose the arrow, waded in the water to
reach it. Just as he was about to grasp the arrow, a canoe passed up to
him with great rapidity. An old man, sitting in the centre, seized the
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