thed. The winter is coming; the snows will
descend, and the winds will leave their caverns in the mountains towards
the setting sun, to war upon the unsheltered kernel of the snail.--You
must be clothed."

Saying this, the Great Being called our father to him, and taught him
how to skin the deer, and how to apply it for the protection of his
person from the frost, and the wind, and the snow. Having done this, and
given him the beasts, and fishes, and all feathered creatures, to be his
food and his raiment, he bade our father farewell, and took his
departure for his home beyond the mountains; and he who had received the
gifts proceeded on his journey towards the Osage.

Strengthened, and rendered cheerful and buoyant, by invigorating food
and refreshing sleep, our father's steps were light, and his journey was
soon near its completion. He soon trod upon the banks of his beloved
river; a few more suns and he would sit down upon the very spot, where,
for so many seasons, he had crawled on the slimy leaf, so often dragged
his lazy legs over the muddy pool. He had seated himself upon the bank
of the river, and was meditating deeply on these things, when up crept
from the water a stranger looking animal with four legs, a broad tail
covered with scales like a fish, and two short ears nearly hidden by the
long fur which covered his body. His colour was that of the berry which
grows within a prickly husk,[A] and is eaten by our Indian people with
their roasted opossums. Approaching our father in a saucy and menacing
manner, and displaying a set of teeth which were none of the handsomest,
he demanded, in an angry tone, "Who are you?"

[Footnote A: The chesnut.]

"I am a snail," answered our father. "Who are you?"

"I am head-warrior of the nation of beavers," answered the other. "By
what authority have you come to disturb my possession of this river? We
have held it from the time that Chappewee's musk-rat brought up the
earth from the bottom of the deep waters. By what right do you come to
disturb our possession of this river?"

"It is not your river," answered the Wasbasha. "It has been mine ever
since the melted snows ran into it. It was mine while I was a weak, and
foolish, and lazy snail; and it is surely mine now I am a wise and
valiant man, and a courageous and expert hunter."

While they stood quarreling hard, and at the point of coming to blows,
there crept out of the water another creature--a young maiden
beaver-