ewis that he shot out
his right hand to seize him by the shoulder. Pau-Puk-Keewis spun around
in a circle, whirled the dust into the air and leaped into a hollow oak
tree, where he changed himself into a serpent and came gliding out among
the roots.

Hiawatha broke the tree to pieces with a blow of his magic mittens; but
there was no Pau-Puk-Keewis inside of it, and Hiawatha saw him once
again in his own form, running like the wind along the beach.

They ran until they came to the painted sand-stone rocks where the Old
Man of the Mountain has his home, and the Old Man opened the doorway of
the rocks and gave Pau-Puk-Keewis a hiding-place in the gloomy caverns
underneath the mountains, shutting the rock doorway with a heavy crash
as Hiawatha threw himself upon it. With his magic mittens Hiawatha
knocked great holes in the rocks, crying out in tones of thunder: "Open!
Open! I am Hiawatha!" But the Old Man of the Mountain did not answer.

Then Hiawatha raised his hands to the heavens and implored the lightning
and the thunder to come to his aid and break the rocks of sand-stone
into fragments, and the lightning and the thunder came snarling and
rumbling over the Big-Sea-Water at the call of Hiawatha. Together
Hiawatha and the lightning split the rock doorway into fragments, and
the thunder boomed among the caverns, shouting: "Where is
Pau-Puk-Keewis!"

Pau-Puk-Keewis lay dead among the caves of sandstone, killed by Hiawatha
and the lightning and thunder. This time he was dead indeed, crushed by
the rocks that had fallen upon him, and killed in his own form so he
might never rise again.

Hiawatha took the ghost of Pau-Puk-Keewis and changed it into a great
eagle that wheels and circles in the air to this day, screaming from the
mountain peaks and gliding in great slants over deep and empty valleys.
In winter, when the wind whirled the snow in drifts and eddies around
the wigwams, the Indians would say to one another: "There is
Pau-Puk-Keewis, come from the mountains to dance once more among the
villages," and when we see great hills of sifted snow, heaped high and
white by winter wind, we may think of Pau-Puk-Keewis and his dance among
the sand dunes.

XVIII

THE DEATH OF KWASIND

THE name and fame of Kwasind, the strong man, had spread among all
tribes of Indians, and in all the world there was nobody who dared to
wrestle or to strive with this mighty friend of Hiawatha. But the
little pigmy people, the