338 THE ORIGIN OF MEDICINE CEREMONIES OR POWER. 
our lodge.’”’ The mother woke up and saw the boy sitting there playing 
with her children. She felt sorry for him, and spoke to him and said: 
‘‘My son, I am sorry you came into this den. This is the den wherea 
powerful Bear lives; he is the largest Bear in the country and has wonder- 
ful powers, given him by the Sun. See, yonder in the corner are skele- 
tons of human beings, even horses and ponies, that he has brought in 
here for us to eat. He has taken the things that the people wear and 
brought them here. You can see them hanging upon the wall yonder. 
He has wonderful powers and he does mysterious tricks with the things 
that are hung up there. I am very sorry you have come and I am afraid 
you will never go back to your people alive.”’ 
The boy said: ‘‘Mother, Iam poor. I came seeking your place; I 
have found it. If your husband comes and kills me, it is all good and 
well; I shall be eaten up, but I shall be thankful, for I am poor in spirit 
all the time when at home. I am poor, so I might as well be dead.” 
The mother Bear rose up and said: ‘‘He is coming; I can hear him 
running. He smelt your tracks. There, take the little Bear in your 
arms. Hold tight tohim. If he tells you to turn the little Bear loose, 
do not obey him, for he thinks a great deal more of that little Bear than 
of the others. It may be that he will spare your life for taking the little 
Bear in your arms.’’ The boy took the little Bear in his arms, and the 
Bear came tumbling into the hole, spread his paws down upon the ground 
and then upwards, and exclaimed: ‘‘What! What! What! I smell 
a human being.’ He called his wife and said: ‘‘ Where is the man?” 
The Bear saw him. He ordered the boy to turn the little Bear loose, 
and said: ‘‘How dare you hold my child in your arms! Turn him 
loose or I will kill you!”” But the boy would not turn him loose. The 
Bear ordered the boy to turn the little Bear loose many times, but he 
would not pay any attention. At last the little Bear said: ‘‘Father is 
not going to kill you; he is going to take pity on you, for he thinks much 
of me. I will ask him to spare your life.’’ The little Bear asked his 
father to take pity upon the poor boy, as he had come to them, and as he 
had played with them, saying that he wanted to keep the boy in the 
den with them. The Bear grew calm, but before he quieted down he 
had been exhaling different colored dusts. When this breathing of dust 
ceased, the boy knew that the Bear was no longer angry; so he turned 
the young Bear loose. The Bear went around the lodge and sat down. 
The Bear told the boy that he had killed many people, some of them 
hunters; that many had shot at him, but that the arrows dropped off 
from his shaggy coat, and that he had killed them and brought their guns 
and things into the den. The Bear also told the boy that he was the 
