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“Ho, brother-in-law, you have won from me my implements. Again 
some time you will be engaging in a contest. These, my mother’s lice you 
will have for your use, and also these things, the iron and the other. As 
the warm weather comes on, well on into summer, that is when you will 
be contending.” 
Thereupon they went home. They came to where they dwelt. 
“Ha, now he is more of a manitou than ever!” thought He Who Had 
Carried the Old Woman on His Back. 
Then, when summer came and it was almost time for his brother-in- 
law to arrive, then at one time, as they moved camp and were stopping for 
the night, there came into sight a very lean man carrying a stick to which 
at intervals covered-up bundles were tied; they were surprised that this 
person, too, carried a stick. 
Then, as he came to where they were, “Come in!” they said to him. 
Then, “Why, what is this? Whence do you come?” the elder brother 
asked him. 
“From the willow-wood.” 
“But whence?” 
“From the willow- wood, I say!” 
“And what are you seeking, as you go about?” 
“I have come to take a wife. Which of the women sitting here is 
your sister? For your brother-in-law leads you too much of a chase, 
always going away.” 
“You cannot have her to wife.” 
“My younger sisters have come with me and are staying close by here, 
so you may marry them in return.” 
They did not accept this offer. 
“Then we shall have to settle it by a contest!” said the lean one. 
“Very well, you first!” he was told who had the lice. 
He merely fixed his thought on the idea that lice were to come down. 
They came down and settled on the lean man. He pointed the stick which 
he was carrying toward the blazing fire, and the lice burned up, all the 
different evil animals, such as worms and toads, which he had as lice. So 
when they had been almost all destroyed, he quit. Then he tried the 
string with fur on it. At once he moved his stick like this, and there, the 
thing clung to it. Then he threw the piece of iron over yonder; at once 
the lean man took it up into one of his hands and rubbed it; when he 
threw it back yonder, it was small again. Then they summoned those 
who were to be their followers. It turned out that he who had surprised 
them by also having a saskatoon stick had one follower more, a white 
worm of those that stay under the ground. 
Then, just as he was thinking, “And so I must flee; we must flee!” 
suddenly from the west came the call, “Hey, brother-in-law, make room! 
Let go your sticks! I am coming!” 
Then something came a-flying with noise, and down fell the little 
bundles that were tied fast to that stick. It fell to the ground. And that 
stick stood upright in the ground again, when he arrived, none other than 
that awkward man, who wore his garments with the fur turned out. 
“In time to come, mortal man will take up this root. ‘Medicine,’ he 
will call it, with which my brother-in-law has blessed him in the hither 
course of time. And this which my brother-in-law has here, mortal man 
