The boy would thereupon run as fast as possible to the hill top and secrete himself in the pine woods. The old man had used every artifice to make the boy cowardly and so when he heard an owl hooting in the darkness of the wood he trembled and ran in wild terror down the hill and rushed into the lodge.
“O O O—uncle, I’ve, I’ve—I’ve heard—”
“Now wait a bit my son, wait ’till I smoke.” And when the old man had finished his pipe he asked, “Well, what did you hear?”
“Noise like this,—O-O-O-Owah! o-o-o-owah!”
“Ugh, that’s nothing,” said the old man. “You are no good.” So saying he thrust a ladle into the fire and drew it out full of embers and bidding the boy stand fast threw them on his legs. Maddened by the pain the boy rushed from the lodge with cries of agony.
The next day Hatondas was again sent on the same errand and again terrified by a strange sound ran back to the old man and reported.
“Stop, stop!” the old fellow yelled. “Let me smoke first!” And when the last curl of blue vapor had been drawn from the old stone pipe he spoke, “Now tell me!”
“It was gak-gaw-gak-gaw-gak-gaw! O grandfather!”
“Chisnah! That was nothing,” the old man replied, and again threw hot ashes on the boy.
Day after day the same procedure continued and after a year the boy, once handsome and lithe, was scarred and crippled. The grandfather now devised new schemes. When he had sent He-goes-to-listen up the hill he stretched a deer tendon across the door way, and returning, the boy tripped and fell, severely bruising his face. The old schemer laughed and said, “Good joke, good joke, I’ll never do it again.” But each day as he sent the boy up the hill he would break his promise and the youth would be frightfully cut by the fall over the thong. However, after a while in spite of the old man’s promises the youth became wary in his pell-mell rush into the lodge and would step over the cord.