est in search of birds and
squirrels, with your little brother. It is not manly to be ever about
the lodge. Nor will you become a warrior if you tell all the little
things that you see and hear to your father. Say not a word to him."

The boys obeyed, but as they grew older and still noticed the visits of
the stranger, they resolved to speak again to their mother.

They now told her that they meant to make known to their father all that
they had witnessed, for they frequently saw this young man passing
through the woods, and he did not walk in the path, nor did he carry any
thing to eat. If he had any message to deliver at their lodge, why did
he not give it to their father? for they had observed that messages were
always addressed to men, and not to women.

When her sons spoke thus to her, the mother was greatly vexed.

"I will kill you," she said, "if you speak of it."

In fear they for a time held their peace, but still taking note that the
stranger came so often and by stealth to the lodge, they resolved at
last to speak with their father.

Accordingly one day, when they were out in the woods, learning to follow
the chase, they told him all that they had seen.

The face of the father grew dark. He was still for a while, and when at
length he looked up--

"It is done!" he said. "Do you, my children, tarry here until the hour
of the falling of the sun, then come to the lodge and you will find me."

The father left them at a slow pace, and they remained sporting away
their time till the hour for their return had come.

When they reached the lodge the mother was not there. They dared not to
ask their father whither she had gone, and from that day forth her name
was never spoken again in the lodge.

In course of time the two boys had grown to be men, and although the
mother was never more seen in the lodge, in charge of her household
tasks, nor on the path in the forest, nor by the river side, she still
lingered, ever and ever, near the lodge.

Changed, but the same, with ghastly looks and arms that were withered,
she appeared to her sons as they returned from the hunt, in the
twilight, in the close of the day.

At night she darkly unlatched the lodge-door and glided in, and bent
over them as they sought to sleep. Oftenest it was her bare brow, white,
and bony, and bodyless, that they saw floating in the air, and making a
mock of them in the wild paths of the forest, or in the midnight
darkness of the lodg