"Some time after this Nanahboozoo took a journey to view the new world
he had made, and as he travelled he created various animals suitable for
the different parts of the new world. He then experimented in making
man. The first one he burnt too black, and was not satisfied. Then he
tried again, and was no better pleased, as this one was too white. His
third attempt satisfied him, and he left him in this country, while the
first two he had made he placed far away. He then gave to the men he
had created their various customs and habits and beliefs.
"Thus Nanahboozoo, having finished his work, now sits at the North Pole,
which the Indians used to consider the top of the earth. There he sits
overlooking all the transactions and affairs of the people he has placed
on the earth.
"The northern tribes say that Nanahboozoo always sleeps during the
winter, but previous to his falling asleep he fills his great pipe and
smokes for several days, and that it is the smoke rising from the mouth
and pipe of Nanahboozoo which at that season of the year produces what
is called the Indian summer."
The boys listened to this Indian tradition of the flood with a great
deal of interest, and the next Sabbath they got out their Bibles and
tried to see the points of resemblance between the account given of Noah
and that given of Nanahboozoo.
They decided that Nanahboozoo was the Indian name for Noah, and the raft
was the substitute for the ark. The sending out of the various animals
to discover and bring some earth stood for the sending forth of the
raven and the dove. In some other conversations with Indians on the
different traditions about the flood, Mustagan told them that, in some
of the tribes he had visited, they had, in addition to what has here
been narrated, a story of a bird coming with a little twig, and sticking
it in the newly formed world of Nanahboozoo. This little twig took root
and rapidly grew into a large tree, and from it all the other trees and
shrubs had come.
Three Boys in the Wild North Land--by Egerton Ryerson Young
CHAPTER TWENTY.
THE CALL OF THE MOOSE--PREPARATIONS FOR CAPTURE--MIDNIGHT MARCH--RIVAL
BULLS--A ROYAL BATTLE--FRANK'S SHOT--BIG TOM, THE SUCCESSFUL MOOSE
HUNTER--YOUNG MOOSE CALVES--THEIR CAPTURE--SAM'S AWKWARD PREDICAMENT.
In the morning the boys were informed that during the night the call of
a great moose bull was heard, and that an effort would be made the next
night to kil
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