88 MYTHS OF THE IROQUOIS. 



which he crept. The steps came nearer and nearer, until at last he 

 felt the strokes of the dead man's hatchet, and heard the dead man's 

 voice saying, "Ah ! you are here. I have caught you." Then the dead 

 man took a pole and tried to poke the hunter out of the hollow, but he 

 could not. At last his hatchet broke, and then the hunter heard him 

 say, " I must go ; my night is coming on." So, after a while, the hunter 

 crept out of the hollow log and went after his wife and child, and 

 returned to the settlement and told all about it ; and the chief sent and 

 burnt up the dead man's wigwam until it was nothing but ashes. 



A HUNTER S ADVENTURES. 



This was told by Mr. Snow, Seneca Reservation : 



A hunter far from home had expended all of his arrows, when he ar- 

 rived at a lake. He saw a great number of wild geese. Having been 

 unsuccessful, he now reflected upon the best means of capturing some 

 of these geese, and he finally concluded to pursue the following plan : 

 He procured a quantity of second-growth bass-wood bark, which he tore 

 into withes. These he fastened to his belt, then, swimming out into the 

 lake, he dove down under the floating flock and succeeded in tying a 

 few of the geese to his belt, whereupon the struggling geese, with their 

 companions, flew up into the air, carrying the hunter with them. While 

 unfastening a few of the tied ones, so that he might be let down to 

 the ground in a gradual manner, the whole of the captured ones broke 

 away, and the poor hunter fell into a tall and hollow stump, from which 

 he found it impossible to free himself. 



He remained in this miserable prison nearly two days, when he with 

 joy heard a thumping sound upon the outside of the stump, and also the 

 voices of women choppers, who were cutting down the stump for wood, 

 but the cries of the man on the inside of the stump frightened the 

 women so much that they went away in search of aid to secure the game 

 which they supposed they had found in the stump. 



The hunter was finally delivered safely from his perilous situation, and 

 he remained with his kind rescuers until he had again provided himself 

 with a large stock of arrows, when he started anew for a hunt farther 

 to the south. Having arrived at his destination, he built a lodge and 

 had excellent luck in killing large numbers of deer, bears, and other 

 game, the oil of which he carefully preserved in leathern bottles. When 

 he concluded to return to his home and friends he remembered his ex- 

 perience in flying, so he prepared wings for himself, which wings he 

 made from thinly-dressed deer-skin. Taking his bottles of oil for bal- 

 last, he started homeward, but as he passed over the lodges of the good 

 women who had rescued him, he threw down several bottles to these his 

 good friends, who to this day do not know from whence they came. After 



