tasy toward the
zenith. It was the Northern Lights--the Aurora Borealis. The parents of
this Elephant had long sought it but had never reached it; they had
hoped that it would be the staircase up which their son, the Elephant,
now asleep, would mount the sky to dwell among the stars. Still he
slept, though the light grew clearer and the rays became more distinctly
marked. It was now twelve o'clock and deep night. What was that
descending the slope of the Auroral Light? Who could tell? Who saw it?
Yet the Elephant in his sleep saw it. Down the slope he knew It
come--down the staircase which was the way to immortality. Now It
hovered near him and thus he heard It speak:--

"Thou hast sinned. The river that flowed so peacefully and carried
beauty and joy wherever it ran, thou hast despoiled and rudely ravaged.
Thou smotest its breast with terrible rocks; thou wouldst not heed its
complaining cry; thou turnedst its peace into mad wrangling. But worse,
thou slewest with thine own foot the little one that loved thee and
saved thy life from the fierce Wolf. For this the river and the Squirrel
shall be avenged. Thou didst choke the river with rocks; thou didst
crush the Squirrel with thy foot. Thou shalt thyself become a stone and
another shall stand on thy head. Arise!"

The Elephant obeyed trembling. He stood upon his feet. For one moment he
saw with his mortal eyes It that had spoken; the next he was blinded by
a flash; he saw no more, but he knew that in that instant he was turned
into a rock where he was standing. His feet were sunk in the ground and
his trunk extended before him was also rooted in the earth. All stone.
Where his eyes were, only two slight chinks in the rock remained.

But at the same moment the Elephant heard,--so faintly that he could
hardly catch the sound--a last word from the voice:--

"Thus, but not forever. A Deliverer shall come and thou shalt mount up
to the sky and dwell among the stars."

That was what the Elephant heard. He heard nothing more but he could
feel. He could feel himself a stone; that is a dreadful thing to feel.
It was a heavy, crushing feeling; a dead weight always bearing him down.
He could not lift it; he could not throw it off. It was forever crushing
him down, down,--though he never really sank. But it was the same thing
to him; he felt that he was sinking.

But he had another evil to bear. A tree with its roots sunk in the
ground all about him, stood directly over his h