grape-juice.

"See, my child," she said, addressing him, "the pretty drink your mother
gives you."

Spirit-Iron took a long draught, and immediately left the lodge with his
eyes wide open; for it was the drink which teaches one to see the truth
of things as they are. He rose up when he got into the open air, stood
upon his hind legs, and looked about. "I see how it is," he said; and
marching off, erect like a man, he sought out his young master.

Approaching him in great confidence, he bent down and whispered in his
ear (having first looked cautiously around to see that no one was
listening), "This old woman here in the lodge is no mother of yours. I
have found your real mother, and she is worth looking at. When we come
back from our day's sport, I'll prove it to you."

They went out into the woods, and at the close of the afternoon they
brought back a great spoil of meat of all kinds. The young man, as soon
as he had laid aside his weapons, said to the old Toad-Woman, "Send some
of the best of this meat to the stranger who has arrived lately."

The Toad-Woman answered, "No! Why should I send to her, the poor widow!"

The young man would not be refused; and at last the old Toad-Woman
consented to take something and throw it down at the door. She called
out, "My son gives you this." But, being bewitched by Mukakee Mindemoea,
it was so bitter and distasteful, that the young woman immediately cast
it out of the lodge after her.

In the evening the young man paid the stranger a visit at her lodge of
cedar-boughs. She then told him that she was his real mother, and that
he had been stolen away from her by the old Toad-Woman, who was a
child-thief and a witch. As the young man appeared to doubt, she added,
"Feign yourself sick when you go home to her lodge; and when the
Toad-Woman asks what ails you, say that you wish to see your cradle; for
your cradle was of wampum, and your faithful brother the dog, in
striving to save you, tore off these pieces which I show you."

They were real wampum, white and blue, shining and beautiful; and the
young man, placing them in his bosom, set off; but as he did not seem
quite steady in his belief of the strange woman's story, the dog
Spirit-Iron, taking his arm, kept close by his side, and gave him many
words of encouragement as they went along. They entered the lodge
together; and the old Toad-Woman saw, from something in the dog's eye,
that trouble was coming.

"Mother," said th