Once, when all the maize was planted, Hiawatha bade his wife go alone at night, clothed only in her dark tresses, and draw a magic circle round the cornfield, so that no blight or insect might injure the harvest. This Minnehaha did, but the King of Ravens and his band of followers, who were perched on the tree-tops overlooking the cornfield, laughed with glee to think that Hiawatha had forgotten what mischief they could do. So early on the morrow all the black thieves, crows and blackbirds, jays and ravens, flew down on the field, and with claws and beak began to dig up the buried grain. But the wary Hiawatha had over-heard the birds' mocking laughter and, rising before daybreak, had scattered snares over the fields. Thus it happened that the birds found their claws all entangled in the snares, and Hiawatha, coming out from the hiding-place where he had been watching them, killed them without mercy; only one was spared, the King of Ravens himself, whom Hiawatha pinioned with a strong rope and fastened to the ridge-pole of his wigwam as a warning to all other thieves.
Now it chanced one day that the mischievous Pau-Puk-Keewis wandered through the village and reaching the farthest wigwam, which was that of Hiawatha, found it deserted. The raven perched on the ridge-pole, flapped his wings, and screamed at the intruder; but Pau-Puk-Keewis twisted the poor bird's neck and left the lifeless body dangling from the roof; then he entered the lodge and threw all the household things into the wildest disorder as an insult to the careful Nokomis and the beautiful Minnehaha. Satisfied with the mischief he had done, Pau-Puk-Keewis climbed a rocky headland overlooking the lake and amused himself by killing the sea-gulls as they fluttered round him.
When Hiawatha returned, fierce anger rose in his heart. "I will slay this mischief-maker," said he, "even if I have to search the world for him." Together with other hunters he set out in hot pursuit, but cunning Pau-Puk-Keewis outstripped them all and ran, swift as an antelope, till he came to a stream in the midst of a forest where the beavers had built a dam. "Change me into a beaver," he entreated them, "and make me larger than yourselves, so that I may be your ruler and king." "Yes," said one of the beavers, "let yourself down into the water, and we will make you into a beaver ten times larger than any of ourselves." This they did, but not long had Pau-Puk-Keewis sat in state among the beavers when they heard a trampling and a crashing above the water, and the watchman cried: "Here is Hiawatha with his hunters!" All the other beavers made their escape through the doorway of their lodge into deeper water, but so large had Pau-Puk-Keewis become that he could not pass through the opening. Then Hiawatha, peering through the water, recognized Pau-Puk-Keewis, in spite of his disguise, and slew him. Six tall hunters bore the dead body of the beaver homeward, but the spirit of Pau-Puk-Keewis was still alive within it, and escaping, took its human form again and vanished into the forest.
Only the wary Hiawatha saw the figure as it disappeared and followed in hot pursuit. Hard pressed, Pau-Puk-Keewis reached the edge of the lake and besought a brant (or wild goose) to change him into one of themselves, and to make him ten times larger than the others. Straightway they changed him into an enormous brant, and, with a whirr of wings, the whole flock rose in the air and flew northward. "Take good heed and look not downward, lest some great mishap befall you," cried the other birds to Pau-Puk-Keewis, and he heeded their words. But on the morrow, as they continued their flight, Pau-Puk-Keewis heard a great shouting in the village beneath and knew the voices of Hiawatha and Iagoo. Forgetful of his warning, he looked downward, and the wind caught his plumage and sent him whirling towards the earth. In vain he struggled to regain his balance—he fell heavily to the ground and lay dead with broken pinions. But his spirit was still alive, and, taking its human form, again fled from Hiawatha. This time Hiawatha pursued his cunning foe so closely that he could almost touch him, but Pau-Puk-Keewis changed himself into a serpent and glided into a tree. While Hiawatha was groping in the hollow trunk, the mischief-maker once more took his human shape and sped away until he came to the sandstone rocks overlooking the Big Lake; and the Old Man of the Mountain opened his rocky doorway and gave Pau-Puk-Keewis shelter. Hiawatha stood without and battered against the caverns shouting, "Open! I am Hiawatha!" But the Old Man of the Mountain neither opened nor made answer. Then Hiawatha raised his hands to heaven and called the thunder and lightning to his aid. Stronger than any mortal power, the tempest smote the rocks till they fell to fragments, and there beneath the crags lay Pau-Puk-Keewis dead in his own human form.
This was Hiawatha's last victory—grief and loss were now to be his portion. The death of his two friends, Chibiabos and Kwasind, weighed on his mind, and, hardest of all, a long and dreary winter, bringing the specters of famine and fever in its train, came upon the land and robbed Hiawatha of his dearest treasure, his beautiful young wife.
Clad in her richest garments, Minnehaha was laid to rest deep beneath the snow, and, as Hiawatha watched the fire which was kindled at night on her grave, his heart grew less heavy, for he felt that their parting was not for long. The time was soon to come when he too could depart to the Islands of the Blessed, where the spirit of his wife awaited him.