47 
He did somehow understand what she was saying. So he went right 
back. He went back where he had come from. Soon the Deadman who 
had instructed him came to where he was. 
“Certainly you will soon get yourself killed! It is evident that you 
will act too crazily! You do not even know the clock!” he told him. 
Then he looked at a clock, making his first acquaintance with it. 
Then he went home, when twelve o’clock had come. Then he went back 
to work, to look for gold. He quit work after a short time. 
“Really, of a sudden you have gone altogether insane,” that wife of 
his said to him, “coming home early all the time like this!” 
“Why,” he said, “my memory has become very short, all of a sudden.” 
Then, in the evening someone brought in a letter. He could make 
nothing of it. Remembering that Deadman who had befriended him, he 
went out of the house. 
“Alas, you are a crazy fool!” he told him; “And so it appears you will 
soon be killed!” 
The other touched his face, his eyes and his mouth; he could read. 
Then, when he read it, it was written that tomorrow people were coming 
to fight him; for that chief he had killed had been at war, and had been 
attacked, it seemed, every little while. He wrote; he told his followers 
the news. 
“Get yourselves ready, men. Tomorrow they are coming to fight us. 
Letters have been sent to me.” 
And really, in the morning they arrived who were coming to make war 
against them. But as for Wisahk^chahk, of course, he merely looked on 
in his useless way. 
Presently that woman said to him, “Truly, you are entirely foolish! 
Your men will all be killed,” she told him; “You ought to order your 
clothes to be taken out for you to put on, and your horse to be saddled.” 
So Wisahketchahk ordered his horse to be saddled. It was saddled. 
He put on his clothes; he went and fought. Of course he carried on in a 
crazy way. He killed all those who had come to fight. He sent only one 
back home, having written a letter. 
When they arrived over there, the wise men said, “Doubtless this is 
Wisahketchahk, up to his old tricks!” 
He wrote a letter: “If you are Wisahketchahk, I shall kill you without 
delay. You are cutting up altogether too much.” 
When it was brought to Wisahketchahk he read it. 
“Doubtless it is you, Wisahketchahk, up to your old tricks, who are 
doing all this,” he was told. 
He fled; he did not even show anyone this letter; he fled just as he 
was, at once. 
He ran four days and nights. Then, when he came to a big lake, “I 
told you so, ‘Doubtless you are Wisahketchahk, up to your old tricks,’ I 
told you,” said a man to him, whom he met by the shore of the lake; “Now, 
Wisahketchahk, let us have a contest!” he said to him. 
So he asked him in what way they were to contend. 
“We shall walk on the surface of the water,” the other told him. 
“Very well,” said Wisahketchahk. 
83186— 4i 
