] then the noise will cease."
And seizing it, and howling furiously the name of his brother after a
fashion which no one could understand,--_Aa-chowwa'n_!--and
bidding him begone, he rushed out into the night, until he came to
Marten, to whom he gave the food, and, wrapping him up well in the
moose-skin, bade him wait a while. And the villagers thought the
chief's wife was indeed a very great conjurer.
And then she-he announced that a child would soon be born. And when the
day came Badger handed out a bundle, and said that the babe was in it.
"_Noolmusugakelaimadijul_," "They kiss it outside the blanket."
But when the chief opened it what he found therein was the dried,
withered embryo of a moose-calf. In a great rage he flung it into the
fire, and all rushed headlong in a furious pack to catch Badger. They
saw him and Marten rushing to the lake. They pursued him, but when he
reached the bank the wily sorcerer cast in a stick; it turned into a
canoe, and long ere the infuriated villagers could reach them they were
on the opposite shore and in the woods.
Now it came to pass one day that as Lox sat on a log a bear came by,
who, being a sociable fellow, sat down by him and smoked a pipe. While
they were talking a gull flew over, and inadvertently offered to Lox
what he considered, or affected to consider, as a great insult. And
wiping the insult off, Lox cried to the Gull, "Oh, ungrateful and
insolent creature, is this the way you reward me for having made you
white!"
Now the Bear would always be white if he could, for the White Bear
(_wabeyu mooin_) is the aristocrat of Beardom.
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