26 TRADITIONS OF THE CADDO. 
13. EVENING-STAR AND ORPHAN-STAR. 
A poor orphan boy lived with a large family of people who were not 
kind to him and mistreated him. Hecould not go to play or hunt 
with the other boys, but had to do all of the hard work. Whenever 
the camp broke up the family always tried to steal away and leave the 
boy behind, but sooner or later he found their new camp and went to 
them because he had no other place to go. One time several families 
went in boats to an island in a large lake to hunt eggs, and the orphan 
boy went with them. After they had filled their boats with eggs they 
secretly made ready to go back to the mainland. In the night, while 
the orphan boy was asleep, they stole away in their boats, leaving him 
to starve on the lonely island. 
The boy wandered about the island, eating only the scraps that he 
could find around the dead camp fires, until he was almost starved. 
As he did not have a bow and arrows, he could not hunt, but he sat by 
the water’s edge and tried to catch fish as they swam past him. One 
day as he sat on the lonely shore he saw a large animal with horns 
coming to him through the water. He sat very still and watched the 
animal, for he was too frightened to run away. ‘The monster came 
straight to him, then raised his head out of the water and said: ‘‘ Boy, 
Ihave come to save you. Isaw the people desert you, and I have taken 
pity upon you and come to rescue you. Get upon my back and hold 
to my horns and I will carry you to the mainland.’’ The boy was no 
longer afraid, but climbed upon the animal’s back. ‘‘ Keep your eyes 
ou the blue sky, and if you see a star tell me at once,’’ the animal said 
to him. They had not gone far when the boy cried, ‘‘ There in the 
west is a big star.’’ The monster looked up and saw the star, then 
turned around at once and swam back to the island as fast as he could. 
The next day he came and took the boy again, telling him, as before, to 
call out the moment that he saw a star appear in the sky. They had 
gonea little farther than they had the day before when the boy cried out, 
‘There in the west is a star.’’ The animal turned around and went 
to the shore. The next day and the next four days he started with 
the boy, and each time he succeeded in getting a little farther before 
the boysaw thestar. The sixth time they were within a few feet of the 
opposite shore when the boy sawthe star. He wanted to reach the shore 
so badly that he thought he would keep still and not tell the monster 
that he saw the star, for he knew that he would take him back to the 
island at once if he did. He said nothing, and so the monster swam 
on until they were almost in shallow water, when the boy saw a great 
blaek cloud roll in front of the star. He became frightened and jumped 
