Pau-Puk-Keewis rose and stood amid the guests. He wore a white shirt of doeskin, fringed with ermine and covered with beads of wampum. He wore deerskin leggings, also fringed with ermine and with quills of Kagh, the hedgehog. On his feet were buck-skin moccasins, richly embroidered, and red foxes' tails to flourish while he danced were fastened to the heels. A snowy plume of swan's down floated over his head, and he carried a gay fan in one hand and a pipe with tassels in the other.
All the warriors disliked Pau-Puk-Keewis, and called him coward and idler; but he cared not at all, because he was so handsome that all the women and the maidens loved him. To the sound of drums and flutes and singing voices Pau-Puk-Keewis now began the Dance of Beggars.
First he danced with slow steps and stately motion in and out of the shadows and the sunshine, gliding like a panther among the pine-trees; but his steps became faster and faster and wilder and wilder, until the wind and dust swept around him as he danced. Time after time he leaped over the heads of the assembled guests and rushed around the wigwam, and at last he sped along the shore of the Big-Sea-Water, stamping on the sand and tossing it furiously in the air, until the wind had become a whirlwind and the sand was blown in great drifts like snowdrifts all over the shore.
There they have stayed until this day, the great Sand Hills of the Nagow Wudjoo.
When the Beggar's Dance was over, Pau-Puk-Keewis returned and sat down laughing among the guests and fanned himself as calmly as if he had not stirred from his seat, while all the guests cried out: "Sing to us, Chibiabos, sing your love songs!" and Hiawatha and Nokomis said: "Yes, sing, Chibiabos, that our guests may enjoy themselves all the more, and our feast may pass more gayly!"
Chibiabos rose, and his wonderful voice swelled all the echoes of the forest, until the streams paused in their courses, and the listening beavers came to the surface of the water so that they might hear. He sang so sweetly that his voice caused the pine-trees to quiver as if a wind were passing through them, and strange sounds seemed to run along the earth. All the Indians were spellbound by his singing, and sat as if they had been turned to stone. Even the smoke ceased to rise from their pipes while Chibiabos sang, but when he had ended they shouted with joy and praised him in loud voices.
Iagoo, the mighty boaster, alone did not join in the roar of praise, for he was jealous of Chibiabos, and longed to tell one of his great stories to the Indians. When Iagoo heard of any adventure he always told of a greater one that had happened to himself, and to listen to him, you would think that nobody was such a mighty hunter and nobody was such a valiant fighter as he. If you would only believe him, you would learn nobody had ever shot an arrow half so far as he had, that nobody could run so fast, or dive so deep, or leap so high, and that nobody in the wide world had ever seen so many wonders as the brave, great, and wonderful Iagoo.
This was the reason that his name had become a byword among the Indians; and whenever a hunter spoke too highly of his own deeds, or a warrior talked too much of what he had done in battle, his hearers shouted: "See, Iagoo is among us!"
But it was Iagoo who had carved the cradle of Hiawatha long ago, and who had taught him how to make his bow and arrows. And as he sat at the feast, old and ugly but very eager to tell of his adventures, Nokomis said to him: "Good Iagoo, tell us some wonderful story, so that our feast may be more merry," and Iagoo answered like a flash: "You shall hear the most wonderful story that has ever been heard since men have lived upon the earth. You shall hear the strange and marvelous tale of Osseo and his father, King of the Evening Star."