17° TALES OF READY-TO-GIVE. 
and saw the strange woman coming towards her. Said the old woman: 
‘‘My dear! My dear! You are my daughter. I have been looking for 
you. You are so good and beautiful. Come and sit down by me. 2 
The girl sat down and all at once the old woman took her sharp stick 
and jammed it into the girl’s ear, and thought she killed her. She blew 
her breath into the girl’s mouth, so that her skin, from her waist up, 
came off. The old woman crawled into the skin, and put her own 
dried-up skin on the girl. She then dragged the girl and threw her into 
astream. She hurried back to the wood and commenced to yell for the 
girls, for she was hungry. This was something unusual. Young-Duck 
would never call for the girls, and never yelled. The girls hurried back 
and came to her, and they noticed that she looked very wild and did not 
act like Young-Duck. They went home, and as the old woman got to 
the tipi, she threw her wood down and went in and said: ‘‘Mother, I am 
tired and hungry.”’ This was also strange; for Young-Duck would never 
throw her wood down, nor say that she was hungry. Instead of washing 
her face and combing her hair, she went and sat upon the pool and said: 
‘‘T am hungry, mother; bring me something to eat!’? The mother took 
the meat to her and her husband, and she ate all the meat before the 
man knew it. 
At night the man suspected that something was wrong, for from the 
waist down the old woman was her own self, and her legs were not round 
like those of a girl. The next day the girls came as usual, and they went 
after wood. As they went along, the old woman kept hallooing and 
talking. The girls did not like it. They came to the tall trees, and the 
old woman stopped. The others went on. The old woman took the 
stick and raised it and said, ‘‘Hook that limb,” but the stick would 
not stretch. ‘‘Stretch,’’ she said; ‘‘come, now, stretch,’’ but the stick 
would not stretch. She tried it on the north side, on the south and on 
the west, but the stick would not stretch. She was afraid that the girls 
would be coming, so she cut a lot of green willows and tied them, and 
swung them on her back; then yelled for the girls to come. The girls 
came with their wood and when they saw the girl with green willow 
they said one to another: ‘‘Why, Young-Duck has never done this. 
Listen, she talks all the time.’’ They went home and the old woman 
threw her wood down and ran into the tipi and said: ‘‘Mother, I am 
tired, and my head aches.’’ She then went to the pool of water, but the 
water had dried up. That night she could not eat anything, but was 
always jabbering and talking. 
The next day she was worse, for the girl’s skin was rotting and was 
making her feel sick. It was noised around that Young-Duck was sick; 

