mischievous Puk-Wudjies, plotted against
Kwasind, for they were very much afraid of him, and thought he would
destroy them.

"If this great fellow goes on breaking whatever he touches, tearing
things to pieces and filling the whole world with wonder at his deeds,
what will happen to us?" cried the Little People; "what will become of
the Puk-Wudjies? He will step on us as if we were mushrooms; he will
drive us into the water, and give our bodies to the wicked
_Nee-ba-naw-baigs_ to be eaten." And all the Little People plotted to
murder the cruel and wicked, dangerous, heartless Kwasind.

There was one secret about Kwasind that nobody on earth knew, except
himself and the clever Little People. All his strength and all his
weakness came from the crown of his head. Nowhere but on the crown of
his head could any weapon do him harm, and even there nothing would hurt
him except the blue seed-cone that grows upon the fir-tree. The Little
People had discovered this by their great skill in magic, and they
gathered together the blue cones of the fir-tree and piled them in great
heaps upon the red rock ledges that overhung the river Taquamenaw. There
they sat and waited until Kwasind should pass by in his canoe.

It was a hot summer afternoon when Kwasind, the strong man, in his birch
canoe came floating slowly down the Taquamenaw. The air was very still
and very warm; the insects buzzed and hummed above the silent water, and
the locust sang from the dry, sweet-smelling bushes on the shore.

In Kwasind's ears there was a drowsy murmur, and he felt the spirits of
sleep beat upon his forehead with their soft little war-clubs. At the
first blow his head nodded with slumber; at the second blow his paddle
trailed motionless in the water, and at the third his eyes closed and he
went fast asleep, sitting bolt upright in his canoe. The warm air
quivered on the water, the midges and the gnats sang in tiny voices, and
the locust once more struck up his shrill tune from the river bank, when
the sentinels of the Little People went scampering down the beach,
calling out shrilly that Kwasind was sound asleep in his canoe and
drifting nearer and nearer to the fatal red rocks that overhung the
river. And all the Little People climbed the rocks and peered down upon
the water, waiting until Kwasind should pass beneath.

At last the canoe swung sideways around a bend in the river and came
drifting down the slow-moving current as lightly as an alde