The canoe stood fast in the ice and doom seemed certain to its inmates.
“Don’t be downcast, Hatondas,” said the wife, “only trust me.”
The wife knelt in the bottom of the canoe where she had a little fire burning and a pot of water.[[24]] She was apparently resigned to the fate from which there seemed no escape. Then when the bear was almost upon them she stood upright and flung a kettle of steaming water at his feet. The beast stopped with a sudden jerk as the clay pot broke into fragments and the water splashed upon the ice. This momentary halt was fatal, for the water softened the ice and the monster sank beneath the waters and disappeared. The ice vanished and the canoe sped on once again.
Late in the day the canoe grated against the base of a high cliff that rose perpendicularly from the water. The wife called up to the top. A woman leaned over the edge far above and seeing the couple below dropped down two pairs of claw mittens. These Hatondas and his wife fastened to their hands, and, with their aid, made their way slowly and cautiously to the summit.
The wife’s sister greeted the bridal pair, and lead the way to a spacious lodge where a savory supper awaited them.
The wife told the story of her adventure expressing great joy at her escape from the monster bear.
After the evening meal the time for sleeping came and together the happy couple lay down upon a new bed of spruce boughs and wrapped themselves in soft newly-tanned skins.
A year passed and to the wife came twin baby boys. And so precocious were they that at their very birth they felled to the floor two curious men who had intruded into their mother’s lodge. They grew so rapidly that in a few hours they had become mature men of prodigious strength and great agility. The old woman provided them with warrior costumes and gave them presents of bows and brought a bear and a deer for the larder. A half starved settlement now feasted. New houses were reared, and new canoes built by these wonderful boys and great riches came to the family.
The mother was happy in her offspring and proud, but in the midst of her joy she began to contrast her present fortune with the unhappy days of her girlhood. She fell to brooding, and, as she lay upon the ground, the roar of a monster echoed through the forest. The twins rushed to her side exclaiming,
“Oh mother, here comes Nia-gwa-he looking like a buffalo!”