“Ah!” sighed the fox. “There is one man who is not lazy. His trap is clean; I could neither smell it, nor see it. I am caught now.”
So this is what happened to the bad fox who had killed so many animals.
It never pays to be treacherous. One should always be loyal to one’s friends.
MI-E-RAK-PUK
Long ago, near the mouth of the Copper Mine River, which flows into the Arctic River, there lived an enormous giant whose name was Mi-e-rak-puk, which in the Eskimo language means “Giant.” His cave was not far from an Eskimo village, and he kept the people of that village in constant terror because when he could not get enough whale meat, or seal to eat, he would capture the little children and eat them up.
One fine day in the autumn a band of children went out from the village to gather berries. There were different sorts of berries all about there that were good to eat: blueberries, lowbush cranberries, salmon-berries and still others. The mothers put these berries away, so that they would all have something good during the long cold winters.
Before starting, the children had been cautioned not to go near the giant’s cave; but the sun was bright and warm, and the farther they got from home, the bigger and sweeter the berries seemed to grow. Then, too, they grow close to the ground, so that the children were looking down, and not noticing where their footsteps were leading them.
There was great rivalry as to which one would get the most berries.
One little girl said, “Look at my basket. It is nearly full!” And another one said, “Mine are the biggest berries!”