"Tia! look! see what a little fellow is here."
The three others thereupon looked up too, and seeing these four faces, as if they had been one, the little spirit or boy-man said to himself:
"Four in one! What a time they must have in choosing their hunting-shirts!"
After they had all stared for a moment at the boy, they covered their heads, intent in searching for fish. The boy thought to himself:
"These four-faces fancy that I am to be put off without notice because I am so little, and they are so broad and long. They shall find out. I may find a way to teach them that I am not to be treated so lightly."
After they were covered up, the boy-man, looking sharply about, saw that among them they had caught one large trout, which was lying just by their side. Stealing along, he slyly seized it, and placing his fingers in the gills, and tossing his ball before him, he ran off at full speed.
They heard the pattering of his little steps upon the ice, and when the four looked up all together, they saw their fine trout sliding away, as if of itself, at a great rate, the boy being so small that he could not be distinguished from the fish.
"See!" they cried out, "our fish is running away on the dry land!"
When they stood up they could just see, over the fish's head, that it was the boy-man who was carrying it off.
The little spirit reached the lodge, and having left the trout at the door, he told his sister to go out and bring in the fish he had brought home.