“Haw! haw!” they cried, and soon the dust and dry leaves flew about as if driven by a strong wind. The Manito was strong, but Paup-puk-keewiss thought he could master him; and all at once, giving him a sly trip as the wicked spirit was trying to finish his breakfast with a piece out of his shoulder, he sent the Manito headforemost against a stone, and, calling aloud to the three others, he bade them come and take the body away.
The brothers now stepped forth in quick succession, but Paup-puk-keewiss, having got his blood up and limbered himself by exercise, soon dispatched the three—sending one this way, another that, and the third straight up into the air so high that he never came down again.
It was time for the old Manito to be frightened, and dreadfully frightened he got, and ran for his life, which was the very worst thing he could have done; for Paup-puk-keewiss, of all his gifts of strength, was most noted for his speed of foot. The old Manito set off, and for mere sport’s sake Paup-puk-keewiss pursued him. Sometimes he was before the wicked old spirit, sometimes he was flying over his head, and then he would keep along at a steady trot just at his heels, till he had blown all the breath out of the old knave’s body.
Meantime his friend, Pipe-bearer, and the twenty young warriors cried out:
“Ha, ha, ah! ha, ha, ah! Paup-puk-keewiss is driving him before him!”
The Manito only turned his head now and then to look back. At length, when he was tired of the sport, to be rid of him, Paup-puk-keewiss, with a gentle application of his foot, sent the wicked old Manito whirling away through the air, in which he made a great number of the most curious turnovers in the world, till he came to alight, when it so happened that he fell astride of an old bull buffalo, grazing in a distant pasture, who straightway set off with him at a long gallop, and the old Manito has not been heard of to this day.
The warriors and Pipe-bearer and Paup-puk-keewiss set to work and burned down the lodge of the wicked spirits, and then when they came to look about, they saw that the ground was strewn on all sides with human bones bleaching in the sun; these were the unhappy victims of the Manitoes. Paup-puk-keewiss then took three arrows from his girdle, and, after having performed a ceremony to the Great Spirit, he shot one into the air, crying: “You are lying down; rise up or you will be hit!”
The bones all moved to one place. He shot the second arrow, repeating the same words, when each bone drew toward its fellow-bone; the third arrow brought forth to life the whole multitude of people who had been killed by the Manitoes. Paup-puk-keewiss conducted the crowd to the chief of the village, who had proved his friend, and gave them into his hands. The chief was there with his counsellors, to whom he spoke apart.
“Who is more worthy,” said the chief to Paup-puk-keewiss, “to rule than you? You alone can defend them.”
Paup-puk-keewiss thanked him, and told him that he was in search of more adventures. “I have done some things,” said Paup-puk-keewiss, rather boastfully, “and I think I can do some more.”