, then the Spirit-wife would be found
seated in the darkest corner of her dwelling, nor could entreaties draw
her out. Insensible to fear, while the sun shone, the moment it
disappeared, her cheek became pallid as death; and if, during the period
of darkness, there happened a high wind from the north, and a fall of
hail, her agony knew no bounds, and excessive trembling would for awhile
deprive her of the power to move, and almost to utter intelligible
sounds. Her husband asked her wherefore this trembling, but could gain
no answer. And thus time passed away.

The snows of ten winters had fallen to rush to the embrace of the
rivers, and black clouds, and cold winds, and falling leaves, were
betokening the near approach of the eleventh, when, upon a clear and
starry night, a stranger, wearing a garment which glittered like ice
upon which the sun is shining, and whose hair was a body of icicles,
entered the village of the Tetons. He was of very small stature, being
scarcely taller than the child who has seen twelve harvests: and his
limbs and features were proportionably small. The colour of his skin,
and the robe which he wore, as well as the shape of the latter, so
nearly resembled those of the Spirit-wife on the morning she came to the
Teton village, that all deemed they were of the same nation, perhaps
brother and sister. When they asked the stranger who he was, and why he
had come hither, he made no answer, but to the question said, with a
voice that sounded like the wind of the Cold Moon:

"Have you seen my wife?"

"Wife?--What wife?" demanded the chief.

"She who _yesterday_ fled from my arms--the beautiful Spirit of Snow."

"Ten seasons have passed," said the chief, "and the eleventh is near at
hand, since there came among us a being, exceedingly beautiful, and
habited much like him to whom the great chief of the Tetons is now
speaking. She has become the wife of one of my Braves. Was she thine ere
she was his?"

"Ten of thy seasons are but a day, nay, but an hour, nay, but a minute,
in the eyes of spirits. In my computation, it was yesterday that the
fair Spirit of Snow left my bosom."

"And who art thou?"

"The Spirit of Tempests--the ruler over the realms of the bleak north;
he who harnesses his horses to the east winds, and drives the furious
whirlwind and crashing tempest over the lands of the affrighted Tetons
and their forest brothers."

"Thou seemest too small of stature to undertake wrathful pu