eized hold of the happy old Indian woman and made her
get up and show herself off in her new apparel, of which she was just as
proud as Kinnesasis.

"And she gave us such a jolly dance in them, papa! Wouldn't you like to see
her do it again?" cried Minnehaha.

But here Kinnesasis, pretending to be shocked beyond measure, in a most
diplomatic manner directed the attention of the parents to some other
matter, and so the mischievous child did not succeed in making a church
scandal by inducing one of the flock to dance before the missionary.

"Tell us, Kinnesasis," said Sagastao, "how it was that that old man and his
daughters first obtained the fire which Nanahboozhoo so cleverly stole from
them and gave to the Indians long ago."

At first Kinnesasis hesitated about telling the old legend, saying that he
did not think the father and mother of the children would care for such
stories.

"Don't they, though!" cried the children. "You don't know them very well,
then, if you don't know that they like stories just about as well as we
do."

And with this they at once appealed to the parents, who of course sided
with them and expressed their desire to listen to this story that the
children had told them they were to hear from dear old Kinnesasis.

Throwing some more logs on the fire, around which the white visitors with
the Indians gathered, Kinnesasis began:

"It was long ago, when I was a young lad, that I heard the story from the
old story-tellers of our people. I had traveled with my father for many
days far toward the setting sun. We reached the land of the great
mountains, and there, with our people of those regions, we spent some
moons. It was while we were among them that I heard from the ancient
story-teller the legend of how the fire was stolen from the center of the
earth, where it was kept hidden away from the human family.

"That there was such a thing as fire was well known. It had been seen
bursting out of the tops of distant mountains, and there had been times in
great thunderstorms, when the lightning had set fire to dead trees--and
indeed in this latter way the Indians had become acquainted with its value
to the human race. But they had not taken care to keep it burning, and no
one had been appointed to specially look after it.

"The reason why fire had not been from the first given to men was because
when the race was created the fire was not much needed. The earth was then
much warmer than it is now.