r three feet long, and stuck one end
of this into each end of the side of sheep ribs which lay at the meat
pile. Finding a thong, he tied it to the middle of the stick, and
making himself a tall tripod for a support, he suspended the piece of
meat directly over the fire at some distance above, so that it could
not burn, but would revolve and cook slowly.

"Suppose in a half-hour I'll can tell story now," said Moise, laughing
pleasantly. "No use how much sheep meat you eat, always you eat more!"

At last, however, at what must have been nine or ten o'clock at night,
at least, perhaps later, after Moise had cut for each of the boys a
smoking hot rib of the delicious mountain mutton, he sat back, a
rib-bone in his own hand, and kept his promise about the story.

"I'll tol' you last night, young mens," he said, "how about those
Wiesacajac, the spirit that goes aroun' in the woods. Now in the fur
country east of the mountains is a lake where a rock is on the shore,
split in two piece, an' the people call that the Split-Stone Lake.
Listen, I speak. I tell now how the lake he's got that name.

"Wiesacajac, he'll make hont sometime in that country, an' he'll come
on a camp where all the men are out honting. Only two peoples is left
in camp, same like you leave us two peoples here when you go hont. But
these two peoples is little, one boy, one girl. The mens an' womens
all go hont in the woods and there is no meat in camp at all. The
children were not old for hont or for feesh. Their papa an' their
mamma say, 'Stay here.' So they stay an' wait. They have wait many
days. Pretty soon now they'll gone dead for starve so long.

"Now Wiesacajac, he'll come an' stan' by the fire, an' see those
little peoples. 'Oh, Wiesacajac,' they'll say, 'we're ver' hongree. We
have not eat for many days. We do not think our peoples will come back
no more. We'll not know what for do.'

"Now, Wiesacajac, he'll been always kin'. 'Oh, now, my childrens,'
he'll say, 'this is bad news what you give me, ver' bad indeed. You'll
make me cry on you, I'll been so sorry for you. You're on this lake
where the win' comes, an' the country is bare, an' there is no game.'

"He'll look aroun' an' see nothing in those camp but one piece of
swanskin, ol' dry swanskin, all eat clean of meat. Then he'll look
out on the lake, an' he'll see a large flock of swans stay there
where no man can come. Those swan will know the children was hongree,
but they'll not like f