"„"/J,xt] fiction 141 



young man. " Stay with me. It is too late to go farther," said the 

 stranger. " No ! I must go on," answered Hat'hondas, hurrying 

 away. At night he built a fire and slept by himself. The next day 

 he went on without interruption until evening, when a man who was 

 building a fire beside the trail urged him to stop, but he refused to 

 do so. Again the man urged him but Hat'hondas would go on. 



The third evening he came on a man who insisted and coaxed so 

 much that he remained with him overnight. Each occupied one side 

 of the fire. After supper, Hat'hondas took off his garments and soon 

 fell asleep. The strange man attempted to steal the clothes, but the 

 mantle, changing into a panther, M-ould not let him come near. Then 

 the man, bit by bit, fed meat to the panther until the animal was 

 pacified, when he put the mantle on his own shoulders. So with the 

 leggings and all the other things, until at last he got possession of the 

 whole outfit of the young man, except the bow and arrows, which he 

 forgot. When ready, he thrust a sharp dart of hickory bark down 

 the backbone of Hat'hondas, and at daylight hurried away to the 

 company which had gathered at the great woman's lodge to shoot at 

 the eagle. 



Hafhondas awoke in terrible pain; he was doubled up like an old 

 man and began to cough badly. After much effort and great suffer- 

 ing, he succeeded in putting on the other man's garments and in 

 dragging himself some distance to a log, on which he sat, holding 

 his bow and arrows, with his head bowed in sorrow. 



After he had been sitting there a couple of hours, a poor, destitute- 

 looking girl came to him, saying : " My mother lives not far from 

 here. I will take you to her." On going home with the girl he 

 learned that her mother was his own sister and that she was there- 

 fore his niece. He told his sister about the visit of the two women, 

 about setting out to shoot the eagle and being robbed on the road of 

 everything but his bow and arrows, and, lastly, about becoming- 

 decrepit and aged -looking from the effects of the hickorj' bark thrust 

 down his backbone. His sister and her daughter were very poor. 

 They had no meat. As they were talking, a robin perched on the edge 

 of the smoke-hole. Hat'hondas drew his bow with great difficulty 

 and shot an arrow which killed the bird. His sister cut it into small 

 pieces and, bruising them, made some soup, which in a measure 

 strengthened her brother. The next day a partridge came in like 

 manner and he killed that, too ; and then a turkey, so they had pro- 

 vision enough. Many days later his sister drew the bark from her 

 brother's back and he became well again. 



As he sat by the door one day he heard a great shouting and 

 tumult, and asked what it meant. They told him that it was the 

 sounds made by those who had assembled to shoot the eagle, and 



