all happy but Osseo, who looked at his
wife and then gazed upward, as if he was looking into the substance of
the sky. Sounds were soon heard, as if from far-off voices in the air,
and they became plainer and plainer, till he could clearly distinguish
some of the words.

"My son--my son," said the voice, "I have seen your afflictions and
pity your wants. I come to call you away from a scene that is stained
with blood and tears. The earth is full of sorrows. Giants and
sorcerers, the enemies of mankind, walk abroad in it, and are scattered
throughout its length. Every night they are lifting their voices to the
Power of Evil, and every day they make themselves busy in casting evil
in the hunter's path. You have long been their victim, but shall be
their victim no more. The spell you were under is broken. Your evil
genius is overcome. I have cast him down by my superior strength, and
it is this strength I now exert for your happiness. Ascend, my
son--ascend into the skies, and partake of the feast I have prepared
for you in the stars, and bring with you those you love.

"The food set before you is enchanted and blessed. Fear not to partake
of it. It is endowed with magic power to give immortality to mortals,
and to change men to spirits. Your bowls and kettles shall be no longer
wood and earth. The one shall become silver, and the other wampum. They
shall shine like fire, and glisten like the most beautiful scarlet.
Every female shall also change her state and looks, and no longer be
doomed to laborious tasks. She shall put on the beauty of the
starlight, and become a shining bird of the air, clothed with shining
feathers. She shall dance and not work--she shall sing and not cry."

"My beams," continued the voice, "shine faintly on your lodge, but they
have a power to transform it into the lightness of the skies, and
decorate it with the colors of the clouds. Come, Osseo, my son, and
dwell no longer on earth. Think strongly on my words, and look
steadfastly at my beams. My power is now at its height. Doubt
not--delay not. It is the voice of the Spirit of the stars that calls
you away to happiness and celestial rest."

The words were intelligible to Osseo, but his companions thought them
some far-off sounds of music, or birds singing in the woods. Very soon
the lodge began to shake and tremble, and they felt it rising into the
air. It was too late to run out, for they were already as high as the
tops of the trees. Osseo