silver, and the Indians feasted on the flesh of the sturgeon
and the pike, on buffalo marrow and the hump of the bison and the haunch
of the red deer. They ate pounded meat called pemican and the wild rice
that grew by the river-bank and golden-yellow cakes of Indian corn. It
was a feast indeed!

But the kind host Hiawatha did not take a mouthful of all this tempting
food. Neither did Minnehaha nor Nokomis, but all three waited on their
guests and served them carefully until their wants were generously
satisfied. When all had finished, old Nokomis filled from an ample otter
pouch the red stone pipes with fragrant tobacco of the south, and when
the blue smoke was rising freely she said: "O Pau-Puk-Keewis, dance your
merry Beggar's Dance to please us, so the time may pass more pleasantly
and our guests may be more gay."

Pau-Puk-Keewis rose and stood amid the guests. He wore a white shirt of
doeskin, fringed with ermine and covered with beads of wampum. He wore
deerskin leggings, also fringed with ermine and with quills of Kagh, the
hedgehog. On his feet were buck-skin moccasins, richly embroidered, and
red foxes' tails to flourish while he danced were fastened to the heels.
A snowy plume of swan's down floated over his head, and he carried a gay
fan in one hand and a pipe with tassels in the other.

All the warriors disliked Pau-Puk-Keewis, and called him coward and
idler; but he cared not at all, because he was so handsome that all the
women and the maidens loved him. To the sound of drums and flutes and
singing voices Pau-Puk-Keewis now began the Dance of Beggars.

First he danced with slow steps and stately motion in and out of the
shadows and the sunshine, gliding like a panther among the pine-trees;
but his steps became faster and faster and wilder and wilder, until the
wind and dust swept around him as he danced. Time after time he leaped
over the heads of the assembled guests and rushed around the wigwam, and
at last he sped along the shore of the Big-Sea-Water, stamping on the
sand and tossing it furiously in the air, until the wind had become a
whirlwind and the sand was blown in great drifts like snowdrifts all
over the shore.

There they have stayed until this day, the great Sand Hills of the Nagow
Wudjoo.

When the Beggar's Dance was over, Pau-Puk-Keewis returned and sat down
laughing among the guests and fanned himself as calmly as if he had not
stirred from his seat, while all the guests cried out: "