bout him where the medicine-men
were still dancing. They were trying to summon Chibiabos from his grave
deep down in the sandy bottom of the Big-Sea-Water, for the water-god
had buried him so deep that his spirit could not go into the land of
dead men, but was still in his drowned body, struggling to free itself.
And the magic of the wise men was so strong that Chibiabos rose body and
all, and stood on the bottom of the lake, listening to them.

Then the dead man floated to the shore, climbed out upon the bank and
made his way swiftly and silently through the forest to the doorway of
the wigwam where the medicine-men were singing. When he shook the
curtain of the doorway and peered in upon them they would not let him
enter, but gave him through an opening in the door a burning torch and
told him to light a fire in the land of spirits, so that all who died
might see it and find their way thither; and they made Chibiabos ruler
in the Kingdom of the Dead. He left the doorway of the wigwam and
vanished in the forest, and the wise men watched the twinkling of his
torch until it disappeared. They saw that the branches did not move as
he passed, and that the dead leaves and the grass did not even bend or
rustle beneath his footsteps, and they looked at one another much
afraid, because such sights are not good for living men to see.

Four days Chibiabos traveled down the pathway of the dead, and for his
food he ate the dead man's strawberry. He saw many other dead men
struggling under heavy burdens of food and skins and wampum that their
friends had given them to use in the Land of Spirits, and they groaned
beneath their burdens. He passed them all, crossed the sad, dark River
of Death upon the swinging log that floats there; and at last he came to
the Lake of Silver, and was carried in the Stone Canoe over the water to
the Islands of the Blessed, where he rules all ghosts and shadows.

When he had disappeared in the dark forest, Hiawatha left the Sacred
Lodge and wandered eastward and westward teaching men the use of roots
and herbs and the cure of all disorders; and thus was first made known
to the Indians the sacred knowledge of caring for the sick.

XVI

PAU-PUK-KEEWIS

YOU remember how Pau-Puk-Keewis danced the Beggar's Dance at Hiawatha's
wedding, and how, in his wild leaping and whirling at the edges of the
Big-Sea-Water, he tossed up the mighty sand dunes of the Nagow Wudjoo.
And you remember also, how the