This spring it was worse than ever. Not even a bear had shown its furry nose within sight of the wigwam. As for the crops, there was hardly a green shoot in all the field Pulowech’s wife had planted. There was nothing left to do but to fish. And fish Pulowech did. Every morning long before sunrise, his canoe was a far gray spot on the horizon. But alas for all his hard work! the more he set his nets, the fewer fish he seemed to catch; and he might trail his line in the water all day without so much as a nibble.
Finally, in despair one day, Pulowech and his wife got into their canoe, and set out for the far fishing-grounds, beyond any part of the sea where they had been before. They paddled and paddled until they could no longer see their wigwam or any land at all. Time after time they stopped and let down their lines, but that day again there seemed to be no fish in the sea. The squaw’s arm grew tired, but still they kept on, hoping to find some magic spot where the fish would come crowding about the canoe, eager to be caught.
Suddenly, up from the sea and down from the sky and around them from every side, swept clouds of fog. In long, quick puffs it came, as if the whole world had begun very quietly to steam. The air was full of it, and as for the sea, it seemed to have vanished in an instant. Pulowech could see the shine of the little waves as he dipped his paddle, but beyond was only grayness. He began to paddle faster, first in one direction, then in another; but no matter which way he turned, the fog seemed to pursue them. There was no end to it at all.
By this time, Pulowech was quite lost. He could not make the smallest guess where his wigwam lay or how to go to get back there. There was nothing to do but to paddle fiercely on, deeper and deeper into the fog. As for Pulowech’s poor, tired wife, she began to cry, which made things very little better.
All at once she stopped paddling. “Listen!” she cried. “Thunder!”
Pulowech stopped too. Over the sea came long, continuous roars. There was no pause in them, and they grew louder and louder, as if the thunder were coming straight—straight—straight at them through the fog. There was something very strange about it too. The nearer, the more deafening it became, the more alive it seemed, the more it sounded as if it were thundering in words. There was another noise too, regular, but not so loud, as if a thousand paddles at once were cutting steadily through the water.
The fog grew dark ahead. Right upon them loomed the thundering monster. Pulowech and his wife shouted with all their voices. The great shape stopped. There above them in the fog towered a tremendous canoe as high as a cliff, and filled with men who seemed to touch the sky.
The giants looked at Pulowech and laughed,—a roar that shook the waves and made the little canoe bob up and down as on a stormy sea. “Ho! Ho!” cried one at last. “And where are you going, my little brother?”
Pulowech took his hands from his ears. “I wish I knew,” he answered bravely. “We are lost in the fog.”
At that the giants laughed ten times harder than ever. “Lost in the fog!” they cried, and wiped their eyes, as if it were the best joke in the world.