45 
“I shall do my best to reach you,” he thought. 
Then he went on. When the next day broke, he still heard it. And 
at last, when he had heard the other chopping away for four days and 
nights, apparently always at the same distance, and when he had walked 
four days and nights, then at last, in the morning, he saw him, noisily 
working at a wooden structure. He saw no wood at all with which that 
person could build anything, though he had heard the noise of it for four 
days. Only two sticks lay there. 
“Dear me, little brother, for a long time, ever since four nights ago, I 
have heard you chopping!” 
Although he spoke to him, the other would not so much as glance at 
him. Although through the day he addressed him in all manner of ways, 
he would not even look at him. And then, at nightfall, when the other 
laid down his hatchet and was off and away, he needs ran after him, but he 
could not make out into what place he had disappeared. He could not 
find him; he had lost him. 
He crawled about, and, “Little brother, you are making me desperate!” 
he kept crying, to make the other speak to him; desiring to have the 
other address him. 
At last he must have got sleepy from weariness. He fell, overcome by 
sleep. When he awoke, there was the other already a-splitting of logs. 
Again, though all day he kept saying to him, “Little brother!” he would 
not talk to him. When the next night came, when the other made off to 
go home, he held fast to him, but when he went into his dwelling, from 
that point he lost him. Again he crawled about all night, looking for him; 
at last he again slept right there on the bare ground. In the morning, 
when he got up, this time, too, the other had already started working at 
his wood. 
“Now today I will see to it that you talk to me !” thought Wisah- 
ketchahk, as before. 
Again, though he talked to him all day, he could not make the other 
address him. Again the other went home. He was very much annoyed. 
He landed on something sharp. 
“Maybe it is this!” he thought; “Surely he is at home here! He is a 
dead man, this person who will not converse with me!” he thought. 
Accordingly, he threw his weight on that bone and held it down, 
right there where he had found it. 
Then, in the morning he was awakened by the other saying to him, 
“Get away, Wisahketchahk! You are keeping me back! I was having a 
pleasant time at chopping!” — for he was holding him down by the weight 
of his body, 
“Wait a bit, little brother!” he told him; “Little brother, you were 
tormenting me terribly, by not talking to me, when for four days I ad- 
dressed you.” 
“Well, brother,” the other told him, “It is because in this place I 
killed myself,” he told him; “That is the way of it.” 
“But why is it you accomplish nothing, when you are always a-chop- 
ping evety day?” 
“It is because of old in this place I chopped off my foot,” the other 
told him. 
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