g to cross the river to get at them. When the
villagers saw this, they were much frightened, and ran about saying,
"Here is the old woman's dog! We shall all be killed!" "Tell the old
woman to stop her dog!" They had never seen a bear and they thought it
was a dog she had made.

The woman went to meet the bear which did not try to hurt her, but was
passing by her to get at the other people when she caught him by the
hair on the back of his neck.

"Do not hurt these people," she said; "they have been kind to me and
have given me food when I was hungry."

She led the bear into her house, and still holding on to him, she
talked to him kindly.

"You have done my bidding well, and I am pleased with you," she said;
"but you must not overdo it. Hereafter you must injure no one unless
he tries to hurt or injure you."

When she had finished talking, she led him to the door and sent him
away over the tundra. Before she made him there had never been any of
his kind, but since then there have always been red bears.

XXV

THE LAST OF THE THUNDERBIRDS

In ancient times a great many giant eagles or thunderbirds lived in
the mountains; but in later years they had all disappeared except one
single pair which made their home in the mountain top overlooking the
Yukon near Sabotnisky. The top of this mountain was round and the
eagles had hollowed out a great basin on the summit which they used
for a nest. Around the edge of it was a rocky rim from which they
could see far across the broad river, or could look down upon the
village at the base of the mountain on the water's edge.

From their perch on this rocky wall these great birds would soar away,
looking like a cloud in the sky, to seize a reindeer from a passing
herd and bring it to their young. Or, again, they would circle out
with a noise like thunder from their shaking wings, and drop down upon
a fisherman in his kayak on the river, carrying man and boat to the
top of the mountain. There the man would be eaten by the young
thunderbirds, and the kayak would lie bleaching among the bones and
other refuse scattered along the border of the nest. Every fall the
young birds would fly away to the northland, while the old ones would
remain by the mountain.

After many fishermen had been carried away by the birds, there came a
time when only the most daring would venture upon the river. One
summer day a brave young hunter was starting out to look at his fish
traps and h