said George. "And they'd been fishing, too. There's a
good fishing place--just try it!"
We did try it, and we had a fairly good catch of large trout. For
supper we had a few of the trout boiled, together with the water, with
one spoonful of flour for each man stirred in. We ate the fish entire,
entrails, head, and all, and from that time on we let no part of the
fish we caught be thrown away. Everything now in the way of food
George divided carefully into three equal parts, even the fish broth.
By this time we had not enough flour on hand to make more than half a
dozen cakes of bread, and we continued to use only a spoonful or two a
day for each man, mixing it with game or fish broth; in this way we
hoped it would satisfy to some extent our craving for grain, and last
longer.
As evening approached the sky cleared, and a big full moon tipped the
fir trees with silver and set Lake Mary to gleaming. The air was
filled with the perfume of the balsam and spruce, and it acted as a
tonic on our spirits and drove away the depression of the day's work in
the rain. Hubbard seemed to be as full of vim as ever, and all of us
were quite contented.
Sitting on the couch of boughs, George looked up at the sky and said:
"There's a fine Indian story about that moon."
Of course Hubbard and I begged that he tell it to us.
"Well," said George, "it's a long story about a boy and girl that lived
together in a wigwam by a great water. Their father and mother were
dead, and the boy had learned to be a great hunter, because he had to
hunt for them both, though he was young. One day he found a tree that
was very high, and he climbed it, and told his sister to climb it with
him; and they climbed higher and higher, and as they climbed, the tree
grew taller and taller; and after a while they reached the moon. And
then the boy laid down to sleep, and after a while he woke up with a
bright light shinin' in his face--it was the sun passin' 'long that
way. The boy said he would set a snare for the sun and catch it, and
the next night he had his snare set when the sun came 'long, and he
caught the sun, and then it was always bright on the moon.
"There's a lot more to that story," added George, after a pause, "and
I'll tell it to you some time; but it's too long and too late to tell
it to-night."
Unfortunately we never heard the continuation of the tale. George
often hinted at interesting folklore stories about the milky way
|