The boy said, “No. I am going to the lodge to get something to eat.”
“Come to my lodge,” said the man. “I’ll give you good food and bring you home again in the morning.”
So the boy went to the man’s lodge with him. They went up the river. The man’s wife and all the other people were glad to see him. They gave him plenty to eat. While he was eating, a man that the boy knew very well indeed came in and spoke to him. So he did not feel strange.
Afterwards he played with the other children and slept there that night. In the morning, their father took him down the trail. They went down a trail that had a cornfield on one side and a peach orchard on the other, until they came to a cross trail. Then the man said,
“Go along this trail across that ridge and you will come to the river road that will take you straight to your home.”
So he went back to his house. The boy went down the trail, but soon he turned and looked back. There was no cornfield there; there were no peach trees or house—nothing but trees on the mountain side. Still he was not frightened. He went on until he came to the river trail in sight of his home. He saw many people standing about talking. When they saw him, they ran towards him shouting, “Here he is! He is not drowned or killed in the mountains!”
Then they said, “Where have you been? We have been looking for you ever since yesterday noon.”
“A man took me over to his house, just across the ridge,” said the boy. “I thought Udsi-skala would tell you where I was.”
Udsi-skala said, “I have not seen you. I was out all day in my canoe looking for you. It was one of the Nunnehi who made himself look like me.”
His mother said, “You say you had plenty to eat there?”