and the Holy Virgin in the country of the
beautiful heaven.

Now, there was also in this river land an evil man of impetuous
appetite who was part bear, and had seven tongues, and his arms had
claws instead of hands. And it befell that when he saw the woman and
heard her voice that was sweet like the singing voice of an arrow when
it leaves the bow, he yearned to her with a vehement love and wooed her
with cunning words and with dram songs that she might come to him and
be his mate-woman.

"So strong am I," he said, "that my blow can break any skull. My skin
is flushed, and my flesh is warm with thoughts of you. My bed is of
soft skins and I will feed you with yellow marrow from white bones. I
am _Mistikwan_, the Head, and I have strength and skill to feed the
mouth of my woman. I am _Askinekew_, the Young Man."

But the woman flouted him, for he was hateful with his hands of hair
and his seven tongues; besides she knew, this woman, that there were
matters of scandal against him and that the people of the Crees said
_weyesekao_, "He is a flesh-eater," and hid themselves in the trees as
he passed by.

And because she thus flouted him, the dew stood out on his face like
the juice on the fir-tree, for he loved her most exceedingly.

But as he drew near and grasped her in his strong arms that could not
be unloosed, the woman's heart became weak as the poplar smoke when it
turns into air.

And thus he holds her for nine months, this _Askinekew_, the Young Man
who is strong and very mischievous, till she bears him a son, when it
happens that for three months he falls asleep so that the woman goes
free to bring heat and light to the river-land and meat and fish to the
kettles.

Thus does Kitemakis, "the poor one," tell me the story of winter and
summer and of the birth of the year.

And Kitemakis, who has "the young lamb's heart among the full-grown
flocks," advises me to hold no converse with left-handed people, for it
is well known in these parts that such have communion with the devils.

I am bewared too, that if I have a bad dream, that is to say, if I
dream of small-pox, or of white people, I must cut a lock from over my
ear and burn it in the fire.

Also, Madam is instructed to throw away the wishbone of any bird she
may eat in order that it may grow again and be food for other folk.

And Kitemakis tells me further that when Amisk, the beaver, dies his
soul lives on. In the happy hunting grounds the