"'Ha, ha, old buzzard! I did catch you after all, as I said I would,' said
Nanahboozhoo. 'Now pull out your neck and head.'

"The buzzard with very great difficulty at length succeeded in drawing his
head out of the side of the deer. The effort to do so, however, was so
great that he lost all of the beautiful feathers that once adorned his head
and neck. From that day they have never grown on him again, and there is
nothing there to be seen but the red rough-looking skin.

"'Never again,' said Nanahboozhoo, 'will feathers cover your neck or head,
and so your friends and enemies, as they see you, will be reminded of how
Nanahboozhoo punished you for playing one of your tricks on him. And also
from this time forward your food will only be of the rankest kind, and the
disagreeable odor will so cling to you that even in the darkest nights your
hateful presence will be detected and shunned.'

"Thus," added Souwanas, "the buzzard is the most despised of birds, because
he is such an ugly fellow, with his featherless head and neck, and because
his disagreeable odor taints the sweet air wherever he goes."

CHAPTER XXIII.

A Moonlight Trip on the Lake--The Legend of the
Orphan Boy--His Appeal to the Man in the Moon--How
He Conquered His Enemies.

Moonlight nights in the Northland are often very beautiful. There in the
summer time the gloaming continues until nearly midnight. Then nothing can
be more glorious than to glide along amid the beautiful fir-clad rocky
islands in a birch canoe over the still transparent waters. So large and
luminous are the full moons of July and August that, with the west aglow
and with the wondrous aurora flashing and blazing in the north, there is
practically little night and no darkness at all.

Nothing gave the children greater pleasure than to have permission to go
with Mary and Kennedy in a large roomy birch canoe for a moonlight
excursion during one of those warm, brilliant nights. With plenty of rugs
or cushions, to make the coziest of seats in the center of the canoe, they
fairly reveled in the beauties of the romantic surroundings while they
floated on the moonlit lake. Often in some place of more than ordinary
beauty Kennedy would cease paddling, and then their very quietness added
to the charms of those happy outings.

[Illustration: With Mary and Kennedy in the birch canoe.]

"Say, Mary," said Sagastao, "I was reading in one of my books about the
'man in the moon.' Do yo