. "What do you mean by that?"

"He means one of the wood-spirits of the Cree Indians," answered Alex,
quietly. "You know, the Injuns have a general belief in the Great
Spirit. Well, Wiesacajac is a busy spirit of the woods, and is usually
good-natured."

"Do you believe in him?" asked Jesse. "I thought you went to church,
Alex?"

"The Company likes us all to go to church when we're in the
settlements," said Alex, "and I do regularly. But you see, my mother
was Injun, and she kept to the old ways. It's hard for me to
understand it, about the old ways and the new ones both. But my mother
and her people all believed in Wiesacajac, and thought he was around
all the time and was able to play jokes on the people if he felt like
it. Usually he was good-natured. But, Moise, go on and tell about how
the fox got his mark."

Moise, assuming a little additional dignity, as became an Indian
teller of stories, now went on with his tale.

"Listen, I speak!" he began. "One tam, long ago, Wiesacajac, he'll be
sit all alone by a lake off north of this river. Wiesacajac, he'll
been hongree, but he'll not be mad. He'll be laugh, an' talk by
heemself an' have good tam, because he'll just keel himself some nice
fat goose.

"Now, Wiesacajac, he'll do the way the people do, an' he'll go for
roast this goose in the sand, under the ashes where he'll make his
fire. He'll take this goose an' bury heem so, all cover' up with ashes
an' coals--like this, you see--but he'll leave the two leg of those
foots stick up through the ground where the goose is bury.

"Wiesacajac he'll feel those goose all over with his breast-bone, an'
he'll say, 'Ah, ha! he'll been fat goose; bimeby he'll be good for
eat.' But he'll know if you watch goose he'll not get done. So bimeby
Wiesacajac he'll walk off away in the wood for to let those goose get
brown in the ashes. This'll be fine day--_beau temps_--an' he'll be
happy, for he'll got meat in camp. So bimeby he'll sit down on log an'
look at those sky an' those wind, an' maybe he'll light his pipe, I
don't know, me.

"Now about this tam some red fox he'll be lie down over those ridge
an' watch Wiesacajac an' those goose. This fox he'll be hongree, too,
for he'll ain't got no goose. He'll been thief, too, all same like
every fox. So he'll see Wiesacajac walk off in woods, an' he'll smell
aroun' an' he'll sneak down to the camp where those goose will be with
his feet stick out of ashes.

"Those thief of fox