^"/JS] LEGENDS 369 



will be well with you"; then she went out. He heard the same 

 sounds as before and saw her drop on the ground ; knowing she was 

 killed, he began to scream. The hunter, hearing him, was astonished. 

 Then, remembering having heard that a child had been lost, He 

 though it might be the child in this tree. So he set to work to get 

 the boy out, and soon succeeded in doing so. He found the child 

 naked and unable to speak a w-ord, having forgotten how to talk. 

 Skinning the largest cub, the hunter made leggings for the child from 

 the skin. The boy was grieved to see his companions dead and cut 

 up, but he could not speak to let his rescuer know how dear they were 

 to him. The hunter took the boy to his father, who was overjoyed 

 to see his child again. Ever afterward he kept the boy near himself, 

 and in the future all was well. 



67. Genonsgwa 



An old woman, the eldest of her people, lived in the forest with 

 two grandchildren, a boy and a girl. One day while the old woman 

 was away a female Genonsgwa came into the lodge and picked up 

 the younger child, the girl. After speaking kindly to her, saying 

 that she was a good little thing, she swallowed her. Then she began 

 to talk to the boy, telling him ho-^ well he looked, and that he was 

 wholesome, but she did not kill him. Sitting on the bed, she told 

 the boy that if he would get on her back, she would take him out to 

 find his grandmother. After climbing on her back, he soon became 

 frightened, whereupon he grasped her so tightly that he became 

 fastened to her back so that he could not get off, though he tried hard 

 to do so. The Genonsgwa, rising, went in a direction different from 

 that in which his grandmother had gone. The boy told her of her 

 mistake, but she said, " Oh ! we shall come to the place where she is." 

 The Genonsgwa went very far into the woods. The boy began to 

 cry for his grandmother, and cried so hard that the Genonsgwa told 

 him to get off her back; she did not like to hear him cry, she said, 

 but as she wanted to eat him, he did not get off; in fact, he could not 

 do so. Fortunately, the Genonsgwa could neither get her hands 

 around to pull him off', nor turn her head to bite him. She could not 

 get at him in any way. Knowing this, the boy clung to the middle 

 of her back, realizing that she would eat him up if he slipped down. 

 They traveled on thus for many days. 



When the grandmother came back to her lodge and found that the 

 boy and the girl were not there, she became very uneasy. She 

 searched for them but found no trace of either. After a while, find- 

 ing the tracks of the Genonsgwa around the lodge, she guessed what 

 the trouble was. The old woman followed the trail of the Genonsgwa, 

 saying that she was bound to get her grandchildren back. 

 94615°— 18 24 



