iawatha had over-heard the
birds' mocking laughter and, rising before daybreak, had scattered
snares over the fields. Thus it happened that the birds found their
claws all entangled in the snares, and Hiawatha, coming out from the
hiding-place where he had been watching them, killed them without
mercy; only one was spared, the King of Ravens himself, whom Hiawatha
pinioned with a strong rope and fastened to the ridge-pole of his wigwam
as a warning to all other thieves.

[Illustration]

Now it chanced one day that the mischievous Pau-Puk-Keewis wandered
through the village and reaching the farthest wigwam, which was that of
Hiawatha, found it deserted. The raven perched on the ridge-pole,
flapped his wings, and screamed at the intruder; but Pau-Puk-Keewis
twisted the poor bird's neck and left the lifeless body dangling from
the roof; then he entered the lodge and threw all the household things
into the wildest disorder as an insult to the careful Nokomis and the
beautiful Minnehaha. Satisfied with the mischief he had done,
Pau-Puk-Keewis climbed a rocky headland overlooking the lake and amused
himself by killing the sea-gulls as they fluttered round him.

When Hiawatha returned, fierce anger rose in his heart. "I will slay
this mischief-maker," said he, "even if I have to search the world for
him." Together with other hunters he set out in hot pursuit, but cunning
Pau-Puk-Keewis outstripped them all and ran, swift as an antelope, till
he came to a stream in the midst of a forest where the beavers had built
a dam. "Change me into a beaver," he entreated them, "and make me larger
than yourselves, so that I may be your ruler and king." "Yes," said one
of the beavers, "let yourself down into the water, and we will make you
into a beaver ten times larger than any of ourselves." This they did,
but not long had Pau-Puk-Keewis sat in state among the beavers when they
heard a trampling and a crashing above the water, and the watchman
cried: "Here is Hiawatha with his hunters!" All the other beavers made
their escape through the doorway of their lodge into deeper water, but
so large had Pau-Puk-Keewis become that he could not pass through the
opening. Then Hiawatha, peering through the water, recognized
Pau-Puk-Keewis, in spite of his disguise, and slew him. Six tall hunters
bore the dead body of the beaver homeward, but the spirit of
Pau-Puk-Keewis was still alive within it, and escaping, took its human
form again and vanishe