"Mother," said the young man, placing his hand to his head and leaning heavily upon Spirit-Iron, as if a sudden faintness had come upon him, "Why am I so different in looks from the rest of your children?"
"Oh," she answered, "there was a very bright, clear blue sky when you were born; that is the reason."
He seemed to be so very ill that the Toad-Woman at length asked what she could do for him. He said that nothing could do him good but the sight of his cradle. She ran immediately and brought a cedar cradle; but he said:
"That is not my cradle."
She went and got another of her own children's cradles, of which there were four; but he turned his head and said:
"That is not mine; I am as sick as ever."
When she had shown the four, and they had all been rejected, she at last produced the real cradle. The young man saw that it was of the same stuff as the wampum which he had in his bosom. He could even see the marks of the teeth of Spirit-Iron left upon the edges, where he had taken hold, striving to hold it back. So he had no doubt, now, which was his mother.
To get free of the old Toad-Woman, it was necessary that the young man should kill a fat bear; and, being directed by Spirit-Iron, who was very wise in such a matter, he secured the fattest in all that country. Having stripped a tall pine of all its bark and branches, he perched the carcass in the top, with its head to the east and its tail due west. Then returning to the lodge, he informed the old Toad-Woman that the fat hear was ready for her, but that to get it she would have to go very far, even to the end of the earth. She answered:
"It is not so far but that I can get it!" For of all things in the world, a fat bear was the delight of the old Toad-Woman.
She at once set forth; and she was no sooner out of sight than the young man and his dog, Spirit-Iron, blew a strong breath in the face of the Toad-Woman's four children (who were all bad spirits, or bear-fiends), and so put out their life. Then setting them up by the side of the door, they thrust a piece of the white bear-fat in each of their mouths.