em. The country
had been once thickly peopled, but this Mudjee Monedo had so thinned it
by his cruel practices, that he now lived almost solitary in the
wilderness.

The secret of his success lay in his great speed. He had the power to
assume the shape of any four-footed creature, and it was his custom to
challenge such as he sought to destroy, to run with him. He had a
beaten path on which he ran, leading around a large lake, and he always
ran around this circle so that the starting and the winning-post was the
same. Whoever failed as every one had, yielded up his life at this post;
and although he ran every day, no man was ever known to beat this evil
genius; for whenever he was pressed hard, he changed himself into a fox,
wolf, deer, or other swift-footed animal, and was thus able to leave his
competitor behind.

The whole country was in dread of this same Mudjee Monedo, and yet the
young men were constantly running with him; for if they refused, he
called them cowards, which was a reproach they could not bear. They
would rather die than be called cowards.

To keep up his sport, the manito made light of these deadly
foot-matches, and instead of assuming a braggart air, and going about in
a boastful way, with the blood of such as he had overcome, upon his
hands, he adopted very pleasing manners, and visited the lodges around
the country as any other sweet-tempered and harmless old Indian might.

His secret object in these friendly visits was to learn whether the
young boys were getting old enough to run with him; he kept a very sharp
eye upon their growth, and the day he thought them ready, he did not
fail to challenge them to a trial on his racing-ground.

There was not a family in all that beautiful region which had not in
this way been visited and thinned out; and the manito had quite
naturally come to be held in abhorrence by all the Indian mothers in the
country.

It happened that there lived near him a poor widow woman, whose husband
and seven sons he had made way with; and she was now living with an only
daughter, and a son of ten or twelve years old.

This widow was very poor and feeble, and she suffered so much for lack
of food and other comforts of the lodge, that she would have been glad
to die, but for her daughter and her little son. The Mudjee Monedo had
already visited her lodge to observe whether the boy was sufficiently
grown to be challenged to the race; and so crafty in his approaches and
s