“En na he na!” Uncheedah exclaimed, but he was already outside.
“Wow, wow, wow! Wow, Wow, wow!”
A deep guttural voice answered him.
Out I rushed with my bow and arrows in my hand.
“Come, uncle, come! A big cinnamon bear!” I shouted as I emerged from the teepee.
Uncle sprang out and in a moment he had sent a swift arrow through the bear’s heart. The animal fell dead. He had just begun to dig up Wabeda’s bone, when the dog’s quick ear had heard the sound.
“Ah, uncle, Wabeda and I ought to have at least a little eaglet’s feather for this. I too sent my small arrow into the bear before he fell,” I exclaimed. “But I thought all bears ought to be in their lodges in the winter time. What was this one doing at this time of the year and night?”
“Well,” said my uncle, “I will tell you. Among the tribes, some are naturally lazy. The cinnamon bear is the lazy one of his tribe. He alone sleeps out of doors in the winter and because he has not a warm bed, he is soon hungry. Sometimes he lives in the hollow trunk of a tree, where he has made a bed of dry grass; but when the night is very cold, like to-night, he has to move about to keep himself from freezing and as he prowls around, he gets hungry.”
We dragged the huge carcass within our lodge. “O, what nice claws he has, uncle!” I exclaimed eagerly. “Can I have them for my necklace?”
“It is only the old medicine men who wear them regularly. The son of a great warrior who has killed a grizzly may wear them upon a public occasion,” he explained.