fore; the snow on the fields
and in the forests was so deep that the Indians could hardly force their
way out of their buried wigwams. No game ran through the frozen
thickets, no birds flew among the trees. In the level snow the starving
hunters could not find a single track of deer or rabbit, and the corn in
the village became less and less until it was all gone. Then the
children began to cry with hunger, the women went about with faces
pinched and drawn, and the men drew their belts tighter day by day. At
night the stars in the heavens seemed to glare like the eyes of famished
wolves, and the cold wind moaned among the trees as if the very air were
suffering from want. It was an evil time.

When the famine was at its worst, two more strange guests came to the
wigwam of Hiawatha; nor did they linger at the doorway and wait to be
invited in. They entered without a word, and with sunken eyes they gazed
at Minnehaha, and one of them said in a hollow voice: "Look on me! My
name is Famine," and the other one cried out: "I am Fever!"

The lovely Minnehaha shivered when she saw them, and a great chill came
over her. She lay down on her bed and hid her face, and as the wicked
guests continued to gaze she felt first burning heat, then icy coldness
dart like arrows through her body. Hiawatha rushed into the forest to
find some food for Minnehaha and to drive away the awful visitors; but
the forest was bleak and empty, and there was no food to be had. "Ah
Great Manito!" cried out Hiawatha, "give me food for my dying Minnehaha,
before the Fever and Famine tear her from me forever!" But the Great
Manito did not answer, and the silent forest only murmured dully,
echoing the words of Hiawatha. With his bow and arrows he strode for
miles through the deserted woods where he had once led his young bride
homeward from the land of the Dacotahs. But now no animals peeped at him
from amid the tree trunks, and there was no cheerful fluttering and
singing from the branches; everything was deathly silent, muffled in a
mighty cloak of snow.

[Illustration: "SEVEN LONG DAYS AND NIGHTS HE SAT THERE"--_Page 293_]

While he was searching in vain for food, the two dark figures in the
wigwam drew closer and closer to Minnehaha, until they crouched at
either side of her bed of branches, and one of them said in hollow
tones: "My name is Famine," and the other cried out: "I am Fever!" and
they leaned over the bed and fixed their sunken eyes on Minne