H^wS] TRADITIONS 455 



The next night they heard something again coming nearer and 

 nearer, and the dogs were greatly frightened. Then a face looked 

 down through the smoke-hole from the top of the lodge — the face 

 of one of the three hunters. Making a hole through the bark wall 

 of the lodge, the man said to his Avife, " Creep through and escape," 

 but she did not want to go. The dogs began to bark at a distance 

 on the side opposite the hole in the wall, coming closer to the lodge, 

 and again he told his wife to creep through the hole and hurry away 

 on a side trail. Having done so, she started off with the baby on 

 her back. She went on, and by and by she heard a dog howl. 

 The dog, coming up to her, said, " Your husband is killed." 

 Keeping on a little way farther, she heard a second dog making a 

 noise as though dying. The first dog said, " Go on as fast as you 

 can; save yourself." Only two dogs were left now. The woman 

 remembered a jDlace through which they had come on the way to 

 the woods — a hollow log — but she feared that when the men came 

 up they might run a stick into it, causing the baby to cry. Next day 

 she climbed a hemlock tree, hiding herself and the child in its 

 branches. She said to the little one, " Now you must be good and 

 keep quiet." After the M'oman had become somewhat rested, she saw 

 the three men coming with loads of meat on their backs, engaged in 

 talking about how they got the good venison. They stopped under 

 the hemlock tree in which the woman and her baby were resting. 

 AVhile the men were lying below the child made water, whereupon 

 the woman, thinking how she could save herself and the little one, 

 caught the water in her hands and drank it. One drop, however, 

 fell on a man directly beneath her, at which he said, " There must 

 be a hedgehog in this tree ; we will cut it down in the morning." At 

 daylight one of the hunters said, "Let us go on." When they were 

 out of sight, the woman, coming down from the tree, went homeward. 



On the way the mother said to her child, " You have now no 

 father, poor baby." When she was near home she saw that there 

 was a light there. The three men, having parted, went to their 

 homes. The woman hurried on, crying, Go'weh! go'weh! meaning 

 that a man had been killed. The people who heard the cry hurried 

 to meet her. She told everything. Taking her home, they put her 

 in her lodge. An old man came to the lodge and asked, "Are you 

 telling the truth?" "Yes," she replied. "Well, we will have a 

 dance," said he, " and call the neighbors together. You must hide 

 so that nobody will see you." He hung up a blanket in a corner of 

 the Long Lodge, and when the people were coming in she hid behind 

 it. When the people were dancing one of the three hunters came 

 with blood on his clothes, while the other two had blood on 

 their backs. The old man said to them, " Your backs are all bloody." 

 " Yes; we are good hunters," they replied; then they danced a while — 



