"Yes, you are right," answered Raven Wing. "Why should he tow our heavy laden canoes upstream? And how would he account for their possession should he meet with any of our own people? We are two birds with broken wings. Paddles and current will carry the canoes faster than we can hope to run for any length of time."
"But we must get back our canoes," answered Hawk Eye.
Raven Wing made no answer. He slowly loosened the leather thong about his neck and opened a small doeskin bag that hung by a leather thong about his neck. Squatting down he took out the wing of a crow.
"I will make medicine," he said. After some little time he replaced the crow's wing in the doeskin bag and fastened the leather thong about his neck.
"The Great Mystery bids me remember how the river runs," he said.
"THE GREAT MYSTERY BIDS ME REMEMBER HOW THE RIVER RUNS," HE SAID.
"And how does it run?" asked Hawk Eye.
Tightening its string until the bow was shaped like a half moon, Raven Wing laid it upon the ground. Placing an arrow, pointed outward, at the center of the curved ash wood, he said, "This arrow points to the Ever Summer Land."
Setting another arrow, with feathered end against the bowstring at a point half way between the tips, he dropped a pebble beside it and said; "This arrow points to the Land of Snows."