e young man, placing his hand to his head, and leaning
heavily upon Spirit-Iron, as if a sudden faintness had come upon him,
"why am I so different in looks from the rest of your children?"

"Oh," she answered, "it was a very bright, clear blue sky when you were
born; that is the reason."

He seemed to be so very ill that the Toad-Woman at length asked what she
could do for him. He said nothing could do him good but the sight of his
cradle. She ran immediately and brought a cedar cradle; but he said:

"That is not my cradle."

She went and got another of her own children's cradles, of which there
were four; but he turned his head, and said:

"That is not mine; I am as sick as ever."

When she had shown the four, and they had been all rejected, she at last
produced the real cradle. The young man saw that it was of the same
stuff as the wampum which he had in his bosom. He could even see the
marks of the teeth of Spirit-Iron left upon the edges, where he had
taken hold, striving to hold it back. He had no doubt, now, which was
his mother.

To get free of the old Toad-Woman, it was necessary that the young man
should kill a fat bear; and, being directed by Spirit-Iron, who was very
wise in such a matter, he secured the fattest in all that country; and
having stripped a tall pine of all its bark and branches, he perched the
carcass in the top, with its head to the east and its tail due west.
Returning to the lodge, he informed the old Toad-Woman that the fat bear
was ready for her, but that she would have to go very far, even to the
end of the earth, to get it. She answered:

"It is not so far but that I can get it;" for of all things in the
world, a fat bear was the delight of the old Toad-Woman.

She at once set forth; and she was no sooner out of sight than the young
man and his dog, Spirit-Iron, blowing a strong breath in the face of the
Toad-Woman's four children (who were all bad spirits, or bear-fiends),
they put out their life. They then set them up by the side of the door,
having first thrust a piece of the white fat in each of their mouths.

The Toad-Woman spent a long time in finding the bear which she had been
sent after, and she made at least five and twenty attempts before she
was able to climb to the carcass. She slipped down three times where she
went up once. When she returned with the great bear on her back, as she
drew near her lodge she was astonished to see the four children standing
up by th