earned that cold weather
followed hot; and spring, winter; and that the sun got up in the
morning and went to bed at night. They said that the great water was
kindly when the sun shone, but when the sun hid its face and the wind
blew upon it, it grew black and angry and upset their canoes. They
found that knocking flints together or rubbing dry sticks would light
the dry moss and that the {162} flames which would bring back summer in the
midst of winter and day in the midst of night were hungry and must be
fed, and when they escaped devoured the woods and only the water could
stop them.

These and many other things men learned, but no one knew why it all
was or how it came to be. Man began to wonder, and that was the
beginning of the path which led to the Great Spirit.

In the ages when men began to wonder there was born a boy whose name
was Wo, which meant in the language of his time, "Whence." As he lay
in his mother's arms she loved him and wondered: "His body is of my
body, but from whence comes the life--the spirit which is like mine
and yet not like it?" And his father seeing the wonder in the mother's
eyes, said, "Whence came he from?" And there was no one to answer, and
so they called him Wo to remind them that they knew not from whence he
came.

As Wo grew up, he was stronger and swifter of foot than any of his
tribe. He became a mighty hunter. He knew the ways of all the wild
things and could read the signs of the seasons. As he grew older they
made him a chief and listened while he spoke at the council board, but
Wo was not satisfied. His name was a question and questioning filled
his mind.

"Whence did he come? Whither was he going? Why did the sun rise and
set? Why did life burst into leaf and flower with the coming of
spring? Why did the child become a man and the man grow old and die?"

The mystery grew upon him as he pondered. In the morning he stood on a
mountain top and stretching out his hands cried, "Whence?" At night he
cried to the moon "Whither?" He listened to the soughing of the trees
and the song of the brook and tried to learn their language. He peered
eagerly into the eyes of little children and tried to read the mystery
of life. He listened at the still lips of the dead, waiting for them
to tell him whither they had gone.

He went out among his fellows silent and absorbed, always looking for
the unseen and listening for the unspoken. He sat so long silent at
the council board that th