Preparations were made for a magnificent funeral, but the friends of the deceased were in great perplexity. "If we bury her in the earth," said they, "the fox will come and disturb her remains. He has barked her to death, and he will be glad to come and finish his work of revenge."
They took counsel together, and determined to hang her body high in a tree as a place of sepulture. They thought the fox would go groping about in the earth, and not lift up his eyes to the branches above his head.
But the grandmother had been at the funeral, and she returned and told the fox all that had been done.
"Now, my son," said she, "listen to me. Do not meddle with the remains of the chief's daughter. You have done mischief enough already. Leave her in peace."
As soon as the grandmother was asleep at night, the fox rambled forth. He soon found the place he sought, and came and sat under the tree where the young girl had been placed. He gazed and gazed at her all the livelong night, and she appeared as beautiful as when in life. But when the day dawned, and the light enabled him to see more clearly, then he observed that decay was doing its work—that instead of a beautiful she presented only a loathsome appearance.
He went home sad and afflicted, and passed all the day mourning in his lodge.
"Have you disturbed the remains of the chief's beautiful daughter?" was his parent's anxious question.
"No, grandmother,"—and he uttered not another word.
Thus it went on for many days and nights. The fox always took care to quit his watch at the early dawn of day, for he knew that her friends would suspect him, and come betimes to see if all was right.
At length he perceived that, gradually, the young girl looked less and less hideous in the morning light, and that she by degrees resumed the appearance she had presented in life, so that in process of time her beauty and look of health quite returned to her.