d follow as soon as
the sickness left him.

At moonrise, therefore, they set out--men and women together, and
even the small children. But Menehwehna called Azoka back from the
door of the lodge.

"My daughter," he asked, they two being left alone, "has Ononwe a
cause of quarrel against Netawis?"

"They are good friends," Azoka answered innocently. "Ononwe never
speaks of Netawis but to praise. Surely my father has heard him?"

"That is returning a ball I never flung," her father said, fixing
grave eyes on her, under which she flinched. "I am thinking that the
face of Netawis troubles the clear water that once was between you
and Ononwe. Yet you tell me that Ononwe praises him. Sit down,
therefore, and hear this tale."

Azoka looked rebellious; but no one in his own household disobeyed
Menehwehna--or out of it, except at peril.

"There was a man of our nation once, a young man, and good-looking as
Ononwe; so handsome that all the village called him the Beau-man.
This Beau-man fell deeply in love with a maiden called Mamondago-kwa,
who also was passably handsome; but she had no right to scorn him as
she did, both in private and openly, so that all the village talked
of his ill-success. This talk so preyed on his mind that he fell
ill, and when his friends broke up their camp after a winter's
hunting to return to the village, he lay on his bed and would not
stir, but declared he would remain and die in the snow rather than
look again on the face of her who scorned him. So at length they
took down the lodge about him and went their ways, leaving him to
die.

"But when the last of them was out of sight this Beau-man arose
and, wandering over the ground where the camp had been, he gathered
up all kinds of waste that his comrades had left behind--scraps of
cloth, beads, feathers, bones and offal of meat, with odds and ends
of chalk, soot, grease, everything that he could pick out of the
trodden snow. Then, having heaped them together, he called on his
guardian _manitou_, and together they set to work to make a man.
They stitched the rags into coat, _mitoses_ and mocassins, and
garnished them with beads and fringes; of the feathers they made a
head-dress, with a frontlet; and then, taking mud, they plastered the
offal and bones together and stuffed them tightly into the garments.
The _manitou_ breathed once, and to the eye all their patchwork
became fresh and fine clothing. The _manitou_ breathed twice, and