hild gone and the dog
too. But on looking round, she saw pieces of the wampum of her child's
cradle bit off by the dog, who strove to retain the child and prevent
his being carried off by an old woman called Mukakee Mindemoea, or the
Toad-Woman. The mother followed at full speed, and occasionally came to
lodges inhabited by old women, who told her at what time the thief had
passed; they also gave her shoes, that she might follow on. There were
a number of these old women, who seemed as if they were all
prophetesses. Each of them would say to her, that when she arrived in
pursuit of her stolen child at the next lodge, she must set the toes of
the moccasins they had loaned her pointing homewards, and they would
return of themselves. She would get others from her entertainers
further on, who would also give her directions how to proceed to
recover her son. She thus followed in the pursuit, from valley to
valley, and stream to stream, for months and years; when she came, at
length, to the lodge of the last of the friendly old Nocoes, or
grandmothers, as they were called, who gave her final instructions how
to proceed. She told her she was near the place where her son was, and
directed her to build a lodge of shin-goob, or cedar boughs, near the
old Toad-Woman's lodge, and to make a little bark dish and squeeze her
milk into it. "Then," she said, "your first child (meaning the dog)
will come and find you out." She did accordingly, and in a short time
she heard her son, now grown, going out to hunt, with his dog, calling
out to him, "Monedo Pewaubik (that is, Steel or Spirit Iron), Twee!
Twee!" She then set ready the dish and filled it with her milk. The dog
soon scented it and came into the lodge; she placed it before him.
"See, my child," said she, addressing him, "the food you used to have
from me, your mother." The dog went and told his young master that he
had found his _real_ mother; and informed him that the old woman, whom
he _called_ his mother, was not his mother, that she had stolen him
when an infant in his cradle, and that he had himself followed her in
hopes of getting him back. The young man and his dog then went on their
hunting excursion, and brought back a great quantity of meat of all
kinds. He said to his pretended mother, as he laid it down, "Send some
to the stranger that has arrived lately." The old hag answered, "No!
why should I send to her--the Sheegowish."[85] He insisted; and she at
last consented t