At last the widow began herself to have a suspicion that her daughter's heart was in the wood, from her long delays in returning and the little success she had in gathering the fire-branches for which she went in search.
Then, in answer to her mother's questions, Minda revealed the truth and made known her lover's request; and the mother gave her consent, considering the lonely and destitute condition of her little household.
The daughter hastened, with light steps, to carry the news to the wood. The bird lover, of course, heard it with delight and fluttered through the air in happy circles, pouring forth a song of joy which thrilled Minda to the heart.
He said that he would come to the lodge at sunset, and immediately took wing, while Minda hung fondly upon his flight, till he was lost far away in the blue sky.
With the twilight the bird lover appeared at the door of the lodge. But now his name was Monedowa, and he had returned to his true form of a hunter, with a red plume on his head and a mantle of blue upon his shoulders.
He addressed the widow as his friend, and she directed him to sit down beside her daughter, and they were regarded as man and wife.
Early on the following morning he asked for the bow and arrows of those who had been slain by the wicked manito, then went out a-hunting. As soon as he had got out of sight of the lodge, he changed himself into the wood-bird he had been before his marriage, and took his flight through the air.
Although game was scarce in the neighborhood of the widow's lodge, Monedowa returned at evening, in his character of a hunter, with two deer. This was his daily practice, and the widow's family never more lacked for food. It was noticed, however, that Monedowa himself ate but little, and that of a peculiar kind of meat flavored with berries, which fact, with other circumstances, convinced his wife that he was not as the Indian people around him. His mother-in-law told him that in a few days the manito would come to pay them a visit, to see how the young man, her son, prospered.
Monedowa answered that he should on that day be absent.
When the time arrived, he flew upon a tall pine-tree overlooking the lodge and took his station there as the wicked manito passed in.