e two elder ones think of their promise never to forsake the
younger, for he was a child, and weak. And while the snow lay thick upon
the ground, they tended him and cherished him; but when the earth showed
green again, the heart of the young man stirred within him, and he
longed to see the wigwams of the village where his father's youth was
spent.

Therefore he opened all his heart to his sister, who answered: 'My
brother, I understand your longing for our fellow-men, whom here we
cannot see. But remember our father's words. Shall we not seek our own
pleasures, and forget the little one?'

But he would not listen, and, making no reply, he took his bow and
arrows and left the hut. The snows fell and melted, yet he never
returned; and at last the heart of the girl grew cold and hard, and her
little boy became a burden in her eyes, till one day she spoke thus to
him: 'See, there is food for many days to come. Stay here within the
shelter of the hut. I go to seek our brother, and when I have found him
I shall return hither.'

But when, after hard journeying, she reached the village where her
brother dwelt, and saw that he had a wife and was happy, and when she,
too, was sought by a young brave, then she also forgot the boy alone in
the forest, and thought only of her husband.

Now as soon as the little boy had eaten all the food which his sister
had left him, he went out into the woods, and gathered berries and dug
up roots, and while the sun shone he was contented and had his fill. But
when the snows began and the wind howled, then his stomach felt empty
and his limbs cold, and he hid in trees all the night, and only crept
out to eat what the wolves had left behind. And by-and-by, having no
other friends, he sought their company, and sat by while they devoured
their prey, and they grew to know him, and gave him food. And without
them he would have died in the snow.

But at last the snows melted, and the ice upon the great lake, and
as the wolves went down to the shore, the boy went after them. And it
happened one day that his big brother was fishing in his canoe near the
shore, and he heard the voice of a child singing in the Indian tone--

'My brother, my brother!
I am becoming a wolf,
I am becoming a wolf!'

And when he had so sung he howled as wolves howl. Then the heart of
the elder sunk, and he hastened towards him, crying, 'Brother, little
brother, come to me;' but he, being half a wolf, on