the animal people, and withstood the force of the elements.
You have subdued the earth to your will, and still you are alone! It is
time to go forth and find a woman whom you can love, and by whose help
you may reproduce your kind."

"But how am I to do this?" replied the first man, who was only an
inexperienced boy. "I am here alone, as you say, and I know not where to
find a woman or a mate!"

"Go forth and seek her," replied the Great Teacher; and forthwith the
youth set out on his wanderings in search of a wife. He had no idea how
to make love, so that the first courtship was done by the pretty and
coquettish maidens of the Bird, Beaver, and Bear tribes. There are some
touching and whimsical love stories which the rich imagination of the
Indian has woven into this old legend.

It is said, for example, that at his first camp he had built for himself
a lodge of green boughs in the midst of the forest, and that there his
reverie was interrupted by a voice from the wilderness--a voice that was
irresistibly and profoundly sweet. In some mysterious way, the soul of
the young man was touched as it had never been before, for this call of
exquisite tenderness and allurement was the voice of the eternal woman!

Presently a charming little girl stood timidly at the door of his
pine-bough wigwam. She was modestly dressed in gray, with a touch of jet
about her pretty face, and she carried a basket of wild cherries which
she shyly offered to the young man. So the rover was subdued, and love
turned loose upon the world to upbuild and to destroy! When at last she
left him, he peeped through the door after her, but saw only a robin,
with head turned archly to one side, fluttering away among the trees.

His next camp was beside a clear, running stream, where a plump and
industrious maid was busily at work chopping wood. He fell promptly in
love with her also, and for some time they lived together in her cosy
house by the waterside. After their boy was born, the wanderer wished
very much to go back to his Elder Brother and to show him his wife and
child. But the beaver-woman refused to go, so at last he went alone
for a short visit. When he returned, there was only a trickle of water
beside the broken dam, the beautiful home was left desolate, and wife
and child were gone forever!

The deserted husband sat alone upon the bank, sleepless and faint with
grief, until he was consoled by a comely young woman in glossy black,
who took