he land of
spirits.

The Indians were surprised by the return of the boys. They came back
singing and dancing, and were grown so much, and looked so different
from what they did when they left the cavern, that their father and
mother scarcely knew them. They were sleek and fat, and when they
walked it was with so strong a step that the hollow space rang with
the sound of their feet. They were covered with the skins of animals,
and had blankets of the skins of racoons and beavers. They described
to the Indians the pleasures of the upper world, and the people were
delighted with their story. At length they resolved to leave their
dull residence underground for the upper regions. All agreed to this
except the ground-hog, the badger, and the mole, who said, as they had
been put where they were, they would live and die there. The rabbit
said he would live sometimes above and sometimes below.

When the Indians had determined to leave their habitations
underground, the Minnatarees began, men, women, and children, to
clamber up the vine, and one-half of them had already reached the
surface of the earth, when a dire mishap involved the remainder in a
still more desolate captivity within its bowels.

There was among them a very fat old woman, who was heavier than any
six of her nation. Nothing would do but she must go up before some of
her neighbours. Away she clambered, but her weight was so great that
the vine broke with it, and the opening, to which it afforded the sole
means of ascending, closed upon her and the rest of her nation.

THE BOY WHO SNARED THE SUN.

At the time when the animals reigned on the earth they had killed all
but a girl and her little brother, and these two were living in fear
and seclusion. The boy was a perfect pigmy, never growing beyond the
stature of a small infant, but the girl increased with her years, so
that the labour of providing food and lodging devolved wholly on her.
She went out daily to get wood for their lodge fire, and took her
brother with her so that no accident might happen to him, for he was
too little to leave alone--a big bird might have flown away with him.
She made him a bow and arrows, and said to him one winter day--

"I will leave you behind where I have been chopping; you must hide
yourself, and you will see the gitshee-gitshee-gaun ai see-ug, or
snow-birds, come and pick the worms out of the wood, where I have been
chopping. Shoot one of them and bring it home