The bear-king replied that Paup-puk-keewiss might do as he pleased, but that one of his young men was at his command; and, jumping nimbly on his back, Paup-puk-keewiss rode home.
He assembled the people, and ordered the bear’s head off, to be hung outside of the village, that the bear-spies, who were lurking in the neighborhood, might see it and carry the news to their chief.
The next morning, by break of day, Paup-puk-keewiss had all of his young warriors under arms and ready for a fight. About the middle of the afternoon the bear war-party came in sight, led on by the pursy king, and making a tremendous noise. They advanced on their hind-legs, and made a very imposing display of their teeth and eyeballs.
The bear-chief himself came forward, and, with a majestic wave of his right hand, said that he did not wish to shed the blood of the young warriors, but that if Paup-puk-keewiss, who appeared to be the head of the war-party, consented, they two would have a race, and the winner should kill the losing chief, and all his young men should be servants to the other.
Paup-puk-keewiss agreed, of course—how little Pipe-bearer, who stood by, grinned as they came to terms!—and they started to run before the whole company of warriors, who stood in a circle looking on.
At first there was a prospect that Paup-puk-keewiss would be badly beaten; for, although he kept crowding the great fat bear-king till the sweat trickled from his shaggy ears, he never seemed to be able to push past him. By and by, Paup-puk-keewiss, going through a number of the most extraordinary maneuvers in the world, raised about the great fat bear-king such eddies and whirlwinds with the sand, and so danced about before and after him, that he at last got fairly bewildered, and cried out for them to come and take him off. Out of sight before him in reaching the goal, Paup-puk-keewiss only waited for the bear-king to come up, when he drove an arrow straight through him and ordered them to take the body away and make it ready for supper, as he was getting hungry.
He then directed all of the other bears to fall to and help prepare the feast, for in fulfilment of the agreement they had become servants. With many wry faces the bears, although bound to act becomingly in their new character, according to the forfeit, served up the body of their late royal master; and in doing this they fell, either by accident or design, into many curious mistakes.
When the feast came to be served up and they were summoned to be in attendance, one of them, a sprightly young fellow of an inquisitive turn of mind, was found upon the roof of the lodge, with his head half way down the smoke-hole, with a view to learn what they were to have for dinner. Another, a middle-aged bear with very long arms, who was put in charge of the children in the character of nurse, squeezed three or four of the most promising young pappooses to death, while the mothers were outside to look after the preparations; and another, when he should have been waiting at the back of his master, had climbed a shady tree and was indulging in his afternoon nap. And when, at last, the dinner was ready to be served, they came tumbling in with the dishes, heels over head, one after the other, so that one half of the feast was spread upon the ground and the other half deposited out of doors, on the other side of the lodge.
After a while, however, by strict discipline and threatening to cut off their provisions, the bear-servants were brought into tolerable control.
Yet Paup-puk-keewiss, with his ever-restless disposition, was uneasy; and, having done so many wonderful things, he resolved upon a strict and thorough reform in all the affairs of the village. To prevent future difficulty he determined to adopt new regulations between the bears and their masters.