s, leaving a doorway facing the lake. Inside the lodge he
built a fire and when it grew bright he cried:

"'Say, brothers, why should you treat me this way when I am here to
give you a big dance? Come into the lodge,' but they wouldn't do that.
Finally OLD-man began to sing a song in the duck-talk, and keep time
with his drum. The Duck-people liked the music, and swam a little
nearer to the shore, watching for trouble all the time, but OLD-man
sang so sweetly that pretty soon they waddled up to the lodge and went
inside. The loon stopped near the door, for he believed that what the
gray goose had said was true, and that OLD-man was up to some mischief.
The gray goose, too, was careful to stay close to the door but the
ducks reached all about the fire. Politely, OLD-man passed the pipe,
and they all smoked with him because it is wrong not to smoke in a
person's lodge if the pipe is offered, and the Duck-people knew that.

"'Well,' said Old-man, 'this is going to be the Blind-dance, but you
will have to be painted first.

"'Brother Mallard, name the colors--tell how you want me to paint you.'

"'Well,' replied the mallard drake, 'paint my head green, and put a
white circle around my throat, like a necklace. Besides that, I want a
brown breast and yellow legs: but I don't want my wife painted that
way.'

"OLD-man painted him just as he asked, and his wife, too. Then the
teal and the wood-duck (it took a long time to paint the wood-duck) and
the spoonbill and the blue-bill and the canvasback and the goose and
the brant and the loon--all chose their paint. OLD-man painted them
all just as they wanted him to, and kept singing all the time. They
looked very pretty in the firelight, for it was night before the
painting was done.

"'Now,' said OLD-man, 'as this is the Blind-dance, when I beat upon my
drum you must all shut your eyes tight and circle around the fire as I
sing. Every one that peeks will have sore eyes forever.'

"Then the Duck-people shut their eyes and OLD-man began to sing: 'Now
you come, ducks, now you come--tum-tum, tum; tum-tum, tum.'

"Around the fire they came with their eyes still shut, and as fast as
they reached OLD-man, the rascal would seize them, and wring their
necks. Ho! things were going fine for OLD-man, but the loon peeked a
little, and saw what was going on; several others heard the fluttering
and opened their eyes, too. The loon cried out, 'He's killing us--let
us fly,' an