s than three moons the lump would be so swelled
that he might disembark upon it, he and all the creatures that were
with him.

Sakechak did as the voice of the Master bade him. He divided the lump
into five portions, and that which came out of the middle of the lump
he moulded into a cake, a little highest in the middle, and flattened
all around the edges. He blew the bubble upon the water, and he set
the cake afloat in the bubble, having first fastened it to his canoe
with a string formed of the sinews of the mud-turtle. As it increased
in size, he strewed upon it a part of the remaining portions of the
lump, first crumbling them very fine, and rubbing them thoroughly into
dust. The wind, which was high at the time, blew the yellow dust,
which was lightest, into his eyes, and thence the eyes of the Indian
have always been tinged with yellow. The little cake increased rapidly
in size. One day, as Sakechak had taken up the third portion of the
mud to prepare it, by crumbling and rubbing, for strewing upon the
earth, his wife discovered a star--the first which had been seen since
the breaking up of the fountain. The loud shout of joy which burst
from her, and her cry "A star! a star!" so discomposed Sakechak, that
he forget what he was about, and threw down the lumps, unrubbed or
uncrumbled. This carelessness occasioned the unevenness of the earth;
the mountains and the rocks which are now found upon it are the lumps
which he threw down unrubbed. He, however, strewed upon it the
remaining portion, which is the reason why rocks are found so far
below the surface. And the earth, so formed from the mud brought up by
the otter, grew so fast that, upon the seventh sun of the third moon,
the hunter Sakechak, and his family, and all the beasts, birds, and
other living things which were with him, left their canoes for the dry
and stable earth, which thenceforth became, and has since continued,
their residence.

Upon the earth thus created trees soon sprung up; but they were only
trunks destitute of branches. But the wit of Sakechak soon gave them
what they wanted. He shot arrows into the trunks, and these became
branches, and took the nature of the trunks. Each became an oak, or a
pine, or a tulip, or a sweet gum, following the nature of the trunks.
Many seasons passed away, however, before the hills were all clothed
with trees, or the dense cloud of leaves hid the bosom of the valleys.

The earth was re-peopled from the loins