But he shall for all that
be tried ere he goes, and that bitterly."
Then they brought a great pipe full of the strongest tobacco; no man
not a magician could have smoked it. And it was passed round: every one
smoked; the brothers blew the smoke through their nostrils. But
Glooskap filled it full, and, lighting it, burnt all the tobacco to
ashes at one pull, and blew all the smoke through his nostrils at one
puff. Then the brothers said again in anger, "This is indeed a great
magician. Yet he shall be tried again ere he goes, and that bitterly."
But they never said it again.
And they still tried to smoke with him, and the wigwam was closed; they
hoped to smother him in smoke, but he sat and puffed away as if he had
been on a mountain-top, till they could bear it no longer. And one
said, "This is idle; let us go and play at ball." The place where they
were to play was on the sandy plain of Samgadihawk, or Saco, on the
bend of the river. [Footnote: I have an Indian stone pestle, or hominy
pounder, which I picked up on the site of this ball-play.] And the game
begun; but Glooskap found that the ball with which they played was a
hideous skull; it was alive and snapped at his heels, and had he been
as other men and it had bitten him, it would have taken his foot off.
Then Glooskap laughed, and said, "So this is the game you play. Good,
but let us all play with our own balls.
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