y in wit
and ingenuity, and presently advised the animals to make an end of him;
"for," said he, "if you do not, some day he will be the master of us
all!" But they all loved the Little Boy Man because he was so friendly
and so playful. Only the monsters of the deep sea listened, and
presently took his life, hiding his body in the bottom of the sea.
Nevertheless, by the magic power of the First-Born, the body was
recovered and was given life again in the sacred vapor-bath, as
described in a former chapter.

Once more our first ancestor roamed happily among the animal people, who
were in those days a powerful nation. He learned their ways and their
language--for they had a common tongue in those days; learned to sing
like the birds, to swim like the fishes, and to climb sure-footed over
rocks like the mountain sheep. Notwithstanding that he was their good
comrade and did them no harm, Unk-to-mee once more sowed dissension
among the animals, and messages were sent into all quarters of the
earth, sea, and air, that all the tribes might unite to declare war upon
the solitary man who was destined to become their master.

After a time the young man discovered the plot, and came home very
sorrowful. He loved his animal friends, and was grieved that they should
combine against him. Besides, he was naked and unarmed. But his Elder
Brother armed him with a bow and flint-headed arrows, a stone war-club
and a spear. He likewise tossed a pebble four times into the air, and
each time it became a cliff or wall of rock about the teepee.

"Now," said he, "it is time to fight and to assert your supremacy,
for it is they who have brought the trouble upon you, and not you upon
them!"

Night and day the Little Boy Man remained upon the watch for his enemies
from the top of the wall, and at last he beheld the prairies black with
buffalo herds, and the elk gathering upon the edges of the forest. Bears
and wolves were closing in from all directions, and now from the sky the
Thunder gave his fearful war-whoop, answered by the wolf's long howl.

The badgers and other burrowers began at once to undermine his rocky
fortress, while the climbers undertook to scale its perpendicular walls.

Then for the first time on earth the bow was strung, and hundreds of
flint-headed arrows found their mark in the bodies of the animals, while
each time that the Boy Man swung his stone war-club, his enemies fell in
countless numbers.

Finally the insects,