"E-ha-we-cha-ye-la, wan-na e-ha un-ta-pe ktay do! (Laugh-maker, we are almost dead with laughing!)" Upon this the little creature swam back into deep water and disappeared.
Now the stranger was not at all amused and in fact could see nothing to laugh at. When all the Bears had got up and dispersed to their homes he came down from the tree with his little son, and the child wished to imitate his great-grandfather Bear. He went out alone on the sandy beach and began to call in his piping voice:
"Laugh-maker, we are come to laugh!"
When he had called four times, the little creature again showed its smooth black head above the water.
"Ha, ha, ha! Why don't you laugh, papa? It is so funny!" the boy cried out breathlessly.
But his father looked on soberly while the thing went through all its usual antics, and the little boy laughed harder and harder, until at last he rolled and rolled on the sandy beach, almost dead with laughter.
"Papa," he gasped, "if you do not stop this funny thing I shall die!"
Then the father picked up his bow and strung it. He gave one more look at his boy, who was gasping for breath; then he fitted a sharp arrow to the bow and pierced the little Laugh-maker to the heart. He went out and took the skin, and they returned in silence to the camp of the Bears.
Now the next time that the herald called upon the Bears to "go a-laughing," the skin of the Laugh-maker was almost dry, but they knew nothing of it. They went away as usual, and left the young man alone with his son. But he, knowing that his wife's kinsfolk would kill him when they discovered what he had done, took the skin for a quiver and went homeward with his child.