nd the fire become our servants.

"'Then we speak great swelling words: How great and wise we are! There is
none like us in the air, in the wood, or in the water!

"'But the words are false. Our pride is like that of a partridge drumming
on his log in the wood before the fox leaps upon him. Our sight is like
that of the mole burrowing under the ground. Our wisdom is like a drop of
dew upon the grass. Our ignorance is like the great water which no eye can
measure.

"'Our life is like a bird coming out of the dark, fluttering for a
heart-beat in the tepee and then going forth into the dark again. No one
can tell us whence it comes or whither it goes. I have asked the wise men,
and they cannot answer; I have listened to the voice of the trees and wind
and water, but I do not know their tongue; I have questioned the sun and
the moon and the stars, but they are silent.

"'But to-day, in the silence before the darkness gives place to light, I
seemed to hear a still small voice within my breast, saying to me: "Wo,
the questioner, rise up like the stag from his lair; away, alone, to the
mountain of the sun. There thou shalt find that which thou seekest."

"'I go, but if I fall by the trail another will take it up. If I find the
answer I will return.'

"Waiting for none, Wo left the council of his tribe and went his way
toward the mountain of the sun. For six days he made his way through the
trackless woods, guided by the sun by day and the stars by night. On the
seventh he came to the great mountain--the mountain of the sun--on whose
top, according to the tradition of his tribe, the sun rested each night.
All day long he climbed, saying to himself: 'I will sleep to-night in the
tepee of the sun and he will tell me whence I come and whither I go.'

"But as he climbed the sun seemed to climb higher and higher. As he neared
the top a cold cloud settled like a night bird on the mountain. Chilled
and faint with hunger and fatigue, Wo struggled on. Just at sunset he
reached the top of the mountain, but it was not the mountain of the sun,
for many days' journey to the west the sun was sinking in the Great Water.

"A bitter cry broke from Wo's parched lips. His long trail was useless.
There was no answer to his questions. The sun journeyed farther and faster
than men dreamed, and of wood and waste and water there was no end.
Overcome with misery and weakness, he fell upon a bed of moss with his
back toward the sunset and the unk