46 
“Do you never eat?” 
“No,” said the dead man; “Where could I get any food?” he said to 
Wisahketchahk. 
“But if you were given something to eat, would you eat?” 
“Yes, I would eat, if you gave me food,” said the dead man. 
“Very well, little brother, I shall give you something to eat.” 
Then he took the shawl he had stolen and spread it out. Look you, 
on a table he saw all kinds of things. I wonder when that corpse had last 
eaten! For he who was called Wisahketchahk deceived everyone. 
He entirely won him over by giving him the food. 
“Hah, you greatly oblige me, Wisahketchahk, giving me food like 
this!” 
“Oh, little brother,” he told him, “as for me, I am travelling about. 
I shall not have any use for this shawl. But you would not have any 
resource from which to get anything to eat,” he told the dead man. 
“Yes,” said the dead man, “I thank you very much, Wisahketchahk! 
Now I shall never be hungry, Wisahketchahk. Go see; if you find any 
gold in my wooden box, just take it,” said the corpse. 
According as he was bidden, Wisahketchahk looked for gold. 
“But, Wisahketchahk, be sensible! After all, you are a crazy fellow. 
At the other side of these woods a chief is now digging gold. You will 
go where he is. You will go see him. You will say to him, ‘The gold we 
others are digging is really fine,’ you will say to him; ‘Yours is very poor. 
You are scooping up almost nothing but water,’ you will say to him; ‘But 
as for us others, I scoop up pure gold,’ you will say to him; ‘And you, you 
are scooping up almost nothing but water. You had better come over 
yourself to where I get gold,’ you will tell him. And when you have led 
him far off, you will kill him. ‘As this chief looked, so I shall look!' you 
will say. Then you will resemble him completely.” 
Then Wisahketchahk set out, as he had been directed by the dead 
man, to go and kill that chief. And really, he had not gone far, when he 
came to a brook where the latter was digging for gold. 
“Truly, the metal you are digging up is very poor,” Wisahketchahk 
told him; “But our metal is very fine; we get nothing but gold.” 
“Now, where is that, pray?” the other answered him; “Take me 
there. Let me go see it,” he told him. He showed him some. “We get 
nothing but gold,” he told him. 
So then he led him away; he led him on into rough places. Then, 
when they had gone quite a ways, as the other got between two trees 
that stood close, he hit him on the head and killed him. 
“So now I want to resemble this chief!” said Wisahketchahk. 
And really, for he was being helped by that Deadman, really, he looked 
exactly like the chief. 
“Now I shall go straight home. Let me see what his wife looks like,” 
he thought. 
He dug for gold but a short while. He dressed up; right then he went 
home. From afar the wife of him whom he had killed saw him coming. 
“WTiy are you coming home? You never come home before the 
regular time. It is always only at twelve o’clock that you come home to 
eat dinner. You are acting very crazily, all of a sudden!” 
