llowing up the stream to Belly River. All day
long as he was travelling, he kept thinking about his having slept by this
woman's bones. It troubled him. He could not forget it. At the same time he
was very tired, because he had walked so far and had slept so little. As
night came on, he crossed over to an island, and determined to camp for the
night. At the upper end of the island was a large tree that had drifted
down and lodged, and in a fork of this tree he built his fire, and got in a
crotch of one of the forks, and sat with his back to the fire, warming
himself, but all the time he was thinking about the woman he had slept
beside the night before. As he sat there, all at once he heard over beyond
the tree, on the other side of the fire, a sound as if something were being
dragged toward him along the ground. It sounded as if a piece of a lodge
were being dragged over the grass. It came closer and closer.

Heavy Collar was scared. He was afraid to turn his head and look back to
see what it was that was coming. He heard the noise come up to the tree in
which his fire was built, and then it stopped, and all at once he heard
some one whistling a tune. He turned around and looked toward the sound,
and there, sitting on the other fork of the tree, right opposite to him,
was the pile of bones by which he had slept, only now all together in the
shape of a skeleton. This ghost had on it a lodge covering. The string,
which is tied to the pole, was fastened about the ghost's neck; the wings
of the lodge stood out on either side of its head, and behind it the lodge
could be seen, stretched out and fading away into the darkness. The ghost
sat on the old dead limb and whistled its tune, and as it whistled, it
swung its legs in time to the tune.

When Heavy Collar saw this, his heart almost melted away. At length he
mustered up courage, and said: "Oh ghost, go away, and do not trouble me. I
am very tired; I want to rest." The ghost paid no attention to him, but
kept on whistling, swinging its legs in time to the tune. Four times he
prayed to her, saying: "Oh ghost, take pity on me! Go away and leave me
alone. I am tired; I want to rest." The more he prayed, the more the ghost
whistled and seemed pleased, swinging her legs, and turning her head from
side to side, sometimes looking down at him, and sometimes up at the stars,
and all the time whistling.

When he saw that she took no notice of what he said, Heavy Collar got angry
at