The next morning the grandmother again gave her grandson parched corn to eat, and when he had eaten she cautioned him once more against going northward. By the middle of the day he had killed a larger string of birds than on the previous day, so he went home to his grandmother. She greeted him at the doorway with the words, “I thank you, grandson, for your success, for we are well off now and shall have plenty to eat.” That night, however, she talked seriously with him, cautioning him in these words: “My grandson, you must always hunt only to the southward from here. You must never go to the northward, for many dangers lurk there which may cut us both off, for you and I are the only persons of our family who are left from destruction by sorcery. So if you are obedient and listen to my words of caution to you, we shall probably live.”
The next morning after his usual breakfast of parched cornmeal the grandson started off. On that day he went farther away than on any previous days, and he saw many different kinds of game, such as he had not seen before. While animals of a certain kind were feeding he managed to get around in front of them, and taking good aim, he killed one with an arrow. The rest of these animals escaped. He went up to the dead game animal, and pulling out his arrow, cleaned it in the manner in which he had been instructed by his grandmother. Then stripping off bark from a neighboring tree and tying the game animal, so as to carry it the more easily on his shoulders, he started for home. When he reached the doorway of his home, he said to his grandmother, “I have larger game this time.” She was delighted with what he had brought home and thanked him for his prowess, saying, “This is what is called Ohsoon.”[312] Having carefully dressed the game animal, the grandmother, after reserving part of it for future use, cooked the remainder. When it was cooked they sat down together and ate it, while the grandmother continued praising her grandson.
The next morning she sent him off again, as she had done so many mornings before. But he had to go a long way this day before he was able to find any game. By the middle of the day, however, he again met with an Ohsoon, which he killed. Having secured it to his body with a bark sling, he started for home, remarking to himself, “Oh! how far away the game animals have gone from home.”
As usual, the next morning he started off to hunt. But after he had gone a short distance he began to think and wonder: “Why does grandmother forbid my going to the north? Yet game is getting scarce in the south?” Finally he came to the conclusion that he would then and there disregard the injunction of his grandmother. So he changed his course to the northward. Soon he found a large [[349]]number of birds. But he had not gone much farther before he heard some one call: “Hallo, nephew! I have caught you.” Looking up, he saw a man sitting on a resting place formed of the tops of several trees, which had been drawn and tied together in a tuft or sheaf of branches. There the man sat as if he were in a basket. “Well, my nephew,” he continued, “what would you do if it should rain spears?” The young man replied, “Oh! we should be very thankful for them, for we need some.” Then the young man ran homeward as fast as he could. Having arrived there, grasping his grandmother by the hand, he dragged her along with the remark, “Oh! grandmother, we must run and hide.” She answered him, “Oh! my grandson, you have been to the north, where I told you not to go.” But he pulled her along as fast as she could go, until finally they came to a spring; leaping into this, they went along underground until they came to a rock. There they sat down and silently waited a long time. At last the boy said: “I think that the storm is over. Let us go home now.” When they reached home they found the lodge leveled to the ground. The poor old grandmother said, “This, indeed, comes of your going to the northward, where I told you not to go.” But the grandson coolly remarked: “Never mind. Oh! grandmother, I will soon have a lodge here.” Then walking around an area as large as he desired the lodge to be, he exclaimed, “Let a lodge at once fill this space of ground.” Hardly had his words died away before a lodge, complete in all its appointments, stood there. Then the grandmother and her potent grandson entered it and they two lived in it, more comfortable than they were before.
The next morning, after having eaten his breakfast of parched corn, the youth again started off southward to hunt. But taking a circuitous course, he finally headed toward the north, remarking to himself, “I had some fun with my uncle yesterday, so I must go to see what he will say this time.” Soon he saw so many birds and was so much occupied in killing them that he had forgotten about the man in the sheaf of tree-tops. Suddenly he was halted with the challenge, “Oh, nephew! I have caught you. What would you do if I should send a shower of stones?” The youth replied, “We should be much pleased, for my grandmother often needs stones for pounding her corn for meal.” So saying, the young man fled homeward. Having arrived there, he grasped his grandmother by the arms and rushed her to the river, and then up the river to the spring. The grandmother scolded him as they fled, saying, “Oh! this is too bad, grandson; you have gone northward again.” Then she would weep bitterly. At last, coming to the spring and descending into it, they crept along until they came again to the rock under which they took shelter before. There they sat until finally the youth said, “I think the storm is now over; let us go home.” On reaching home [[350]]they found their lodge in ruins again. But the youth encouraged his grandmother with comforting words and commanded the erection of another lodge as he had done in the first instance.
The next morning after he had eaten his parched corn, he started out again to hunt. Taking a southward course for a time, he soon turned toward the north. As he went along he soliloquized, “I shall not hunt, but I shall make it my business to catch my uncle.” After going some distance farther, he called a mole, to which he said, when it came to him: “I want you to take me to that tree yonder. You must go almost up to the man who sits on it. After I shall have spoken to him, you must bring me back to this place.” The mole at once agreed to aid him. By shaking himself the youth reduced his size until he became as small as a flea; then he got on the mole. The mole went to the foot of the tree indicated, whereupon the youth called out, “Oh, uncle! I have caught you.” The man looked all around but saw nothing. Again the youth shouted, “What would you do if a whirlwind should come?” The man pleaded, “Oh, nephew! do not be so hard on me as that.” The youth replied, “Oh! I did not beg that way when you asked me about spears and stones.” Then the mole ran back to the place where he had found the youth, and the latter, assuming his natural size, ran home. Grasping his grandmother’s arm, he rushed her to the spring. They both disappeared in its waters, going to their shelter under the rock. The grandmother kept scolding her grandson, saying, “It is too bad; you have been at the north again.” There under the rock they sat until the youth had calmed the whirlwind, when they came up out of the water. They found the trees uprooted and their lodge in ruins. But the youth soon had a lodge in the place of the other by merely commanding his fetishes and walking around the space of ground, as he had previously done.
The next morning, after his usual preparations, the youth started out southward from his home. When out of sight of the lodge he suddenly turned toward the north, with the remark: “I must see my uncle. I find the trees are all uprooted, and it must be that my uncle is buried under these fallen trees. So I can go to hunt in safety now.” After keeping on his journey for some time he found a large number of partridges, which he killed; then he started home. His grandmother was pleased to see him return quietly with game. After laying aside his weapons he remarked: “Well, grandmother, I have destroyed my uncle. He is no longer on the tree.” The grandmother replied, warmly, “Well, you need not think that he was alone in the world. He has a brother, who lives in a lodge farther north.” The youth made no reply, but resolved what he would do in the matter. [[351]]
Early the next morning the young man ate his breakfast of parched cornmeal, after which he started off, determined to find his other uncle, who lived in a lodge. Reaching the place where the trees were uprooted, he found his first uncle dead. But he kept on his course until he came to an opening in the forest, in which he saw a lodge with smoke rising from the smoke-hole. Somewhat pleased, the youth said, “Well, I must go over there and take a look into that lodge, for that must be the place where my second uncle lives.” Going directly to the lodge and opening the door-flap, he peered in, and said to an old man sitting inside, “Well, uncle, I have come to visit you.” The old man calmly replied: “Come in, nephew. I have a rule which all who come here to visit me follow; that is, that we must run a race across this field and back again. We bet our heads on this race.” The youth answered, “Well, if that is your rule, we will run the race at once.” So they went out of doors. Drawing a mark across the opening, the old man said to the youth: “We will run to that red post over there at the end of this opening. If I can get back and across this line first I will cut off your head; but if you return and cross it first you shall cut off my head. So be ready.” At the line they stood side by side; then the old man shouted, “Now, go!” They were off instantly and ran to the post. When halfway back to the line the youth suddenly fell to the ground, a sharpened deer’s horn having pierced his foot.[313] He sat down to pull it out. Having pulled it out, he threw it far ahead, and it came down right in the path of the old man, who had made considerable headway while the boy was sitting down. Now the old man, stepping on the horn, fell to the ground. While he was pulling out the horn, the youth, passing him, crossed the line ahead of the uncle, saying, “Oh, my uncle! I have won the race.” The uncle disputed this, but when he found that it was of no use he begged for another smoke, but the nephew refusing him, he subsided. The youth took out of his pouch a sharp flint knife and, seizing his uncle’s hair, cut off his head. Dragging the body into the lodge, he burned both lodge and body. As the fire died out the old man’s head burst and out of it flew an owl. Then the youth went home and told his grandmother what he had done. But she replied, “You still have a third uncle, who is also a great sorcerer.”
The next morning the youth started off again, this time to visit his third uncle. On his way he passed the uprooted trees and then the burned lodge. Keeping on, he saw some distance ahead a lodge standing in a clearing in the forest. When he came to the edge of the woods, he found that the opening was large and that the lodge stood on the farther side of it. This, he thought, must be the lodge of his third uncle. When he reached the lodge, he looked in it, saying to a man sitting inside, “Well, uncle, I am here to [[352]]visit you.” The man replied: “Oh nephew! I am glad you have come. I have a game to play. Everyone who comes here plays it with me. We bet our heads on the issue of the game.” The youth replied, “Well, uncle, what is this game?” “We hide right here in this room,” answered the uncle. “I will hide, and if you do not find me before midday, you lose, and I will cut off your head; but if you find me, you will win, and then you shall cut off my head.” The youth replied, “It is well.” Then the uncle said: “Now you must lie down here on the ground, and I will cover you with an elk skin. When I am ready I will let you know.” Thereupon the youth lay down, but after he had been carefully covered with the elk skin by his uncle, changing himself into a woodtick, he got on his uncle’s neck. When the old man said, “I am ready,” the woodtick called out, “I have found you, my uncle.” The old man thought the voice came from behind, so he hid again. Again the woodtick called out, “I have found you, my uncle.” The old man looked everywhere, but he could not see his nephew; he saw no one. Once more the old man hid and was discovered. Thus he kept on until midday, as was his right. The old man, thinking all the time that the youth was still under the elk skin, wondered how he could find him so easily. He frequently ran outside to see by the sun how near midday it was; then he would hurry back to hide. At last he decided to hide outside the lodge, but the youth called out, “That will not do, uncle; you said that we must hide in the lodge.” It now being nearly midday, the old man was frightened, so with a long pole he pushed the sun off toward the east. Then running in, he hid again. But the youth shouted, “I have found you, my uncle.” Again the sun was nearly overhead, and again the old man, running out, with the long pole pushed[314] the sun toward the east and kept on hiding, but without success. He was discovered each time. At last when the sun was directly at midday, directly “at mid-sky,” the youth called out to his victim: “Oh, uncle! I have found you. I have won the game.” Thereupon the old man begged for one more smoke, but the youth, knowing his purpose, would not let him have another. Instead, he proceeded to cut off his head; then he dragged the old man’s body into the lodge, where he burned it. When the flesh had burned from the head of the old man, the head burst open and out flew an owl. Looking around this place, the youth saw large heaps of bones of persons whom the old man, having deceived, had killed and eaten.
Then the youth went home and told his grandmother what he had done. Her only reply was: “My grandson, you still have a fourth uncle, who is more evil and more potent in orenda than the others. I advise you not to go near him, for I greatly fear [[353]]that harm will come to you.” The grandson said, “I shall not go, grandmother.”