IROQUOIS MYTHS AND LEGENDS 



67 



and forests he sped faster and faster, and the river seemed to 

 sob as in fear of departing from him when a loud moaning thing 

 encircled him with its broad arms, a mountain of water ridged 

 high above him, and Gus-tah-ote was swept down into the gulf of a 

 great sea. 



But the Rescuer, who had proffered him choice of the element 

 in which he might dwell, reached down in the sea and caught him 

 still breathing and returned him to the hoary old rock. 



There Gus-tah-ote pondered and planned and he thought as he 

 looked up at the sun, " There is the sky, it is open and trackless 

 and leads to far hights. It has no trap to catch the strange traveler, 

 I will try." 



The breath of the day was soft and as gentle as sunlight on a 

 wild blooming flower when Gus-tah-ote tried his wings. 



He plumed them and fitted and fluttered them, and widened 

 them broad to the air, and with a sneer at the bound down old 

 rock he flew high to the sky. 



Down far beneath him were the forests and plains and mountains 

 and rivers. Not far above him the sun was crossing the sky, and 

 around and around him was a boundless freedom that inspired a 

 new heart and life to the rock-bound Gus-tah-ote, who grew like 

 a bird in his lilt through the air as he passed the great feathered 

 birds of the sky who lifted the clouds like a curtain above them. 

 So near the birds he had watched for ages! How fair this life of 

 freedom! No one to restrain him, no one to govern, no stone to 

 fetter him fast in its bounds! 



In his new found liberty, Gus-tah-ote flew higher, and when he 

 looked down, the lands and the mountains and forests and rivers 

 were far beneath him as he entered the mist land of clouds. And 

 the air grew chill, and a something rushed past him, wounding his 

 wings which dropped helplessly down when he tried to outspread 

 them. And a shivery wind pushed against him and tore him to 

 fragments as it whirled him over and over in the shoreless sky. 



Bit by bit his feathers divided, and his weight growing un- 

 wieldy as he tossed near to death, Gus-tah-ote fell down through 

 the labyrinthed cloud fleet, down through the endless free way to 

 the earth ! 



Senseless, unknowing, he fell, and was prostrate to his death 

 when the Rescuer came and led him back to the rock within the 

 valley. 



Again Gus-tah-ote marveled and planned and deliberated. 

 In his flying he had scanned the great earth as it extended beneath 



