"I have traveled a great distance," she added, "to see you and to become your wife; for I have heard of your great achievements, and admire you very much."
Now this woman was the sixth giant, who had assumed this disguise to entrap White Feather.
Without a suspicion of her real character, her reproaches and her beauty affected him so deeply that he wished himself a man again, and he at once resumed his natural shape. They sat down together, and he began to caress and to make love to her.
Soothed by her smiles and her gracious manners, he ventured to lay his head on her lap, and in a little while he fell into a deep slumber.
Even then, such was her fear of White Feather, she doubted whether his sleep might not be feigned. To assure herself she pushed his head aside, and seeing that he remained unconscious, she quickly assumed her own form as the sixth giant, took the plume from the brow of White Feather and placed it upon his own head, and with a sudden blow of his war-club changed him into a dog, in which degraded form he followed his enemy to the lodge.
While these things were passing, there were living in an Indian village at some distance, two sisters, the daughters of a chief, who were rivals, and they were at that very time fasting to acquire power, for the purpose of enticing the wearer of the white feather to visit their lodge. They each secretly hoped to engage his affections, and each had built a lodge in the border of the village encampment.
The giant knowing this, and having become possessed of the magic plume, went immediately to visit them. As he approached, the sisters, who were on the look-out at their lodge-doors, espied and recognized the feather.
The eldest sister had prepared her lodge with great show, and all the finery she could command, so as to attract the eye. The youngest touched nothing in her lodge, but left it in its ordinary state.
The eldest went out to meet the giant, and invited him in. He accepted her invitation, and made her his wife. The youngest sister invited the enchanted dog into her lodge, prepared him a good supper and a neat bed, and treated him with much attention.
The giant, supposing that whoever possessed the white feather possessed also all its virtues, went out upon the prairie to hunt, hallooing aloud to the game to come and be killed; but the great hubbub he kept up scared them away, and he returned at night with nothing but himself; for he had shouted so lustily all day long that he had been even obliged to leave the mighty halloo, with which he had set out, behind.