ove the stones and twirl them round. And each time
he tried with a larger stone than before, and when he had succeeded
with that, a larger one still. And so he kept on. And at last he could
make even the biggest stones twirl round in the air, and the stone said
"leu-leu-leu-leu" in the air.

Then said the giant at last, seeing that they were equal in strength:

"Now you have become a strong man. But since it was by my fault that
you lost that piece of meat, I will by magic means cause bears to
come down to your village. Three bears there will be, and they will
come right down to the village."

Then little Kagssagssuk went home, and having returned home, went up to
warm himself as usual at the smoke hole. Then came the master of that
house, as usual, and hauled him down by the nostrils. And afterwards,
when he went to lie down among the dogs, his wicked grandmother beat
him and them together, as was her custom. Altogether as if there were
no strong man in the village at all.

But in the night, when all were asleep, he went down to one of the
umiaks, which was frozen fast, and hauled it free.

Next morning when the men awoke, there was a great to-do.

"Hau! That umiak has been hauled out of the ice!"

"Hau! There must be a strong man among us!"

"Who can it be that is so strong?"

"Here is the mighty one, without a doubt," said Umerdlugtoq, pointing
to little Kagssagssuk. But this he said only in mockery.

And a little time after this, the people about the village began to
call out that three bears were in sight--exactly as the giant had
said. Kagssagssuk was inside, drying his boots. And while all the
others were shouting eagerly about the place, he said humbly:

"If only I could borrow a pair of indoor boots from some one."

And at last, as he could get no others, he was obliged to take his
grandmother's boots and put them on.

Then he went out, and ran off over the hard-trodden snow outside the
houses, treading with such force that it seemed as if the footmarks
were made in soft snow. And thus he went off to meet the bears.

"Hau! Look at Kagssagssuk. Did you ever see...."

"What is come to Kagssagssuk; what can it be?"

Umerdlugtoq was greatly excited, and so astonished that his eyes would
not leave the boy. But little Kagssagssuk grasped the biggest of the
bears--a mother with two half-grown cubs--grasped that bear with his
naked fists, and wrung its neck, so that it fell down dead. Then he
took t