“Good-by!” shouted the giants.
“Good-by!” called the Indians.
And Oscoon cried out, last of all: “Do not forget us, little people! Come back to visit us, and send your children. Sometime we will send the little dog for you.”
The Indians paddled, and the little dog pointed. They seemed to glide over the smooth sea at a wonderful rate. In a few minutes, they were out of sight of the giants, who stood on the beach, still waving and shouting good-by. In no time at all, it seemed, they came straight to their own home. There stood their wigwam just as it was the day they left it; and as the canoe grazed the shore, their own children came running to meet them, rosy and well.
The little dog jumped out of the canoe, barking and wagging his tail. He ran about on the sand, and licked the children’s hands. Then he turned and trotted home again over the top of the sea, as if it had been made of hard ice. Pulowech caught up his two youngest children, and set them on his shoulders. And so, carrying the giants’ gifts, they came into their own wigwam.
After that, whenever Pulowech set his nets, they came up bursting with fish. When he went hunting, his arrows brought down all the deer he could possibly need. As for the children, they grew so tall and hearty that the old wigwam would not begin to hold them, and they had to build a new one—the biggest in all the country.
So Pulowech knew that the giants had not forgotten him. And his heart was glad when, a year and a day after they had come home, the little dog came again trotting over the water. The children ran to meet him, and he bounded up to them and licked their hands, just as he had done before.
Pulowech smiled to himself, for he knew quite well why the little dog was there. Then he launched one of his canoes (for now he had many), and calling his two oldest children, told them to get in. The little dog jumped in too, and pointed with his nose the way they were to go. The children paddled safely over the smooth sea, and so they, too, went to Giantland.
In three months the little dog brought them back again, with their canoe full of furs and meat enough to keep them all warm and happy for years to come.