116 TUENEE ON THE INDIANS 



2. — The Indian and his Beaver Wife. 



On a biùght spring morning, an Indian was walking along the bank of a large lake that lay not 

 distant from a river. A beaver swam towards him and the Indian was about to shoot her, when she 

 ci'ied out, " Do not shoot ; I have something to say to you." The hunter inquired of her what she 

 wished to tell him. The beaver asked, " Would you have me for a wife ? " The man replied, " I can 

 not live in the water or eat the bark of willows for food." The beaver smiled and told him : " You 

 will not know you are in the water if you follow me; and when you are eating of my food you will 

 not think it is willow bark. I have a nice house to live in, and the water sun-ounds it all the year, 

 but never enters it." The man then added, " My brother will search for me and will laugh at me for 

 living with a beaver. He will never know where I am." The beaver said to him: " Take off your 

 garments and place them with your weajDons on the bank and follow me. Never mind your brother, 

 for if he finds you he will not laugh at you." The man did as he was directed, and began to wade into 

 the water. He soon began to swim and did not feel the water touching his body. The beaver now 

 camo back to him and they swam side by side until they reached her home near the middle of the lake. 

 The beaver said to him : " There is my house. You will find it as good as your tent and as warm." 

 They entered the lodge, and after they had passed two nights there his brother began to search for 

 him. He went along the bank and discovered his clothing and gun. The brother was alarmed lest 

 his bi-other had been drowned. He took the garments and returned to his tent and told his wife that 

 he feared his brother had been drowned. 



The next morning the brother informed his wife that he had dreamed that his lost brother was 

 living in the middle of the lake with a beaver. She would have to make some new clothes for him, 

 and he would take them to the lake and bring his brother home with him. The next day the clothes 

 were prepared and ready for the lost brother. He directed her to tie them in a bundle and have them 

 ready, as he would start early in the morning. 



Other Indians offered to accompany him, but he told them to remain, " for if you come I cannot 

 induce my brother to return." The next morning he started away to search for the lodge of the beaver 

 who had his brother as a husband. He soon found the beaver's lodge and then began to drain the 

 lake into the river, so that he could get at the lodge in which they lived. 



Two children had been born to the beaver during this time. 



When the water had become so low that the brother could wade to the lodge he entered the 

 water and began to tear down the mud walls of the structure. He pounded on the back of the house 

 and heard movement within, and thus knew it was occupied at the time. 



The father told his children to go out or else they would be killed when the house fell. When they 

 went out, the father and mother heard the uncle kill his nephews by striking them with a club. The 

 wife knew that she also would be killed, and asked her husband to keep the skin of her right arm ; 

 and, if he loved hei', they would meet again. He promised to do so, and she went out of the house. A 

 blow on the head killed her, and the husband began to cry, when he knew that his good wife was dead. 

 The other made the more haste to destroy the house, and in a few minutes had a large hole in the top 

 of it. The brother asked of him, " What are you doing ? The air is cold and I am freezing." The 

 Indian replied, "I have brought more clothes for you, so that you will not be cold." The husband 

 asked him to throw them into the lodge. The Indian now saw that his brother was covered with 

 hair like a beaver, but asked him to come home with him to his tent, where he might live and forget 

 the beaver. The brother consented on condition that nothing should ever be said to him to make 

 him angry. The Indian promised that nothing should ever be said or done to make him angry. He 

 then put on the clothes and came out. The Indian tied the beavers together, slung them on his back 

 and they returned to their tent. 



On the way they found other beavei-s, and the Indian killed a great many of them. Taking them 

 home he threw them down and directed the woman to skin them. 



