“That will do,” he replied, for, looking into a lake hard by, Paup-puk-keewiss saw that he was very large. They spent their time in grazing and running to and fro; but what astonished Paup-puk-keewiss, although he often lifted up his head and directed his eyes that way, he could never see the stars, which he had so admired as a human being.
Being rather cold one day, Paup-puk-keewiss went into a thick wood for shelter, whither he was followed by most of the herd. They had not been long there when some elks from behind passed the others like a strong wind, calling out:
“The hunters are after us!”
All took the alarm, and off they ran, Paup-puk-keewiss with the rest.
“Keep out on the plains,” they said. But it was too late to profit by this advice, for they had already got entangled in the thick woods. Paup-puk-keewiss soon scented the hunters, who were closely following his trail, for they had left all the others and were making after him in full cry. He jumped furiously, dashed through the underwood, and broke down whole groves of saplings in his flight. But this only made it the harder for him to get on, such a huge and lusty elk was he by his own request.
Presently, as he dashed past an open space, he felt an arrow in his side. They could not well miss it, he presented so wide a mark to the shot. He bounded over trees under the smart, but the shafts clattered thicker and thicker at his ribs, and at last one entered his heart. He fell to the ground, and heard the whoop of triumph sounded by the hunters. On coming up, they looked on the carcass with astonishment, and with their hands up to their mouths, exclaimed: “Ty-au! ty-au!”
There were about sixty in the party, who had come out on a special hunt, as one of their number had, the day before, observed his large tracks on the plains. When they had skinned him his flesh grew cold and his spirit took its flight from the dead body, and Paup-puk-keewiss found himself in human shape, with a bow and arrows.
But his passion for adventure was not yet cooled; for, on coming to a large lake with a sandy beach, he saw a large flock of brant, and speaking to them in the brant language, he requested them to make a brant of him.
“Yes,” they replied at once, for the brant is a bird of a very obliging disposition.
“But I want to be very large,” he said. There was no end to the ambition of Paup-puk-keewiss.