; that their lives should be lives of
fatigue and danger, and their deaths, deaths of doubt and agony--penalties
which have attached to his descendants to this day.

Having brought the sun and moon to the earth, the old man Chappewee
rested from his labours, and made no more distant expeditions. Many,
very many, years he lived, and death came not to him. But, to all
around him, the consequences were what he denounced, and he had the
unhappiness to see his prediction verified. The earth produced bad
fruits; the cranberry and the whortleberry rotted on the frost-nipped
bushes, and the strawberry shrivelled on the mildewed vine. He saw
trees grow up crooked, that, before the disobedience of his children,
grew only straight; and animals, which before were only sleek and
round, now were poor and emaciated. He saw sickness lay his children
on beds of leaves, and pains rack their bones; he saw their lives,
lives of fatigue and danger; and their deaths, deaths of doubt and
agony. He saw their spirits again in the mist of the Falls, and heard
the music of their voices, while their bodies lay in the sacred shed.
Still death came not to him. He had now lived so long, that his throat
was worn out, and he could no longer enjoy life, but he was unable to
die. His teeth had rotted out, and had been renewed a hundred times;
his tongue had been repeatedly chafed out, and replaced; and of eyes,
blue, white, and grey, he had had very many pair. Finding that life
was a gift which he could not part with easily, perhaps, not without
some stratagem, he called to him one of his people--it was not his
son, nor his son's son; no, nor one of the twentieth generation--all
these had passed away.

"Go," said he, "to the river of the Bear Lake, and fetch me a man of
the Little Wise People.[A] Let it be one with a brown ring round the
end of the tail, and a white spot on the tip of the nose. Let him be
just two seasons old, upon the first day of the coming Frog-Moon, and
see that his belly be not too big, and see that his teeth be sharp.
And make haste, that I may die."

[Footnote A: Little Wise People, the Beavers, so called by the
Assiniboins. The Indians, though they kill this animal whenever they
can, nevertheless esteem him scarcely inferior to man in wisdom. A bit
of his skin, or his paw, or any part of him, is esteemed a very
powerful "medicine" or amulet.]

The man did as he was directed. He went to the river of Bear Lake, and
brought a m