The youth hastened back. Having arrived in the lodge, he said to his uncle, “Now I think I will again kindle a good fire, because we may be going to have a very cold night.” So, gathering together a number of logs and large pieces of dry wood, he placed them in a pile, and with smaller pieces of wood he kindled a great fire for the night. [[600]]
Night having come, the two retired to rest, each on his own side of the fire. About midnight the youth again began to moan and groan loudly, and the moaning became louder and louder. In a short time he got off his bed and crawled around on his hands and knees. Next, without further warning, he threw himself on the fire, scattering the firebrands over the place where lay his uncle, who at once arose, saying, “What has happened?” Taking down his war club and seeing the head of his nephew close to him, he struck it a blow with the club, which resounded with a very loud băʼʹ! As he raised the club for a second blow, the youth exclaimed, “Oh, my uncle! it has now ceased,” whereupon the uncle addressed him, saying, “What is causing you to see visions?” His nephew replied, “What it commanded me to do is baleful unto death if not fulfilled.” The uncle asked further, “What did it command you to do?” The nephew answered: “The thing it commanded is that you shall again ‘seek to divine the word of my dream’ tomorrow; and if you shall not have divined the ‘word of my dream’ before the sun shall have reached the zenith evil shall befall your person.” The old man mockingly retorted, “Let it be so,” drawing out the expression. Thereupon they both returned to their beds, on which they again lay down for the rest of the night.
The next morning the youth arose, and after making his usual morning preparations, said to his uncle, “The time has now arrived for what I have been commanded to do; so let us begin.” As before, the uncle mockingly said, “So let it be,” once more drawing out the expression to indicate his contempt for his nephew.
After a moment of silence the old man said, “Oh, my nephew! you will just give a small clue to the ‘word of your dream.’ ” His nephew replied, “You know that is not the custom on such occasions, for the reason that it would be of no use to make ‘seeking the word of a dream’ a test if one should furnish a clue. Come, then, let us begin.” This he said with some impatience, knowing full well that the uncle was only seeking to cause him to make some error in the test.
So the old man began by asking, “Perhaps you may mean in your desire, suggested by the ‘word of the dream,’ the flesh of the moose?” But the youth replied, “No; that is not what is desired.” The old man asked again, “Perhaps you mean in your desire, suggested by the ‘word of the dream,’ the flesh of the bear?” And the youth answered, “No; that is not what is desired.” The uncle once more asked, “Perhaps you may mean in your desire, suggested by the ‘word of the dream,’ the flesh of the raccoon?” But the youth answered, “No; that is not what is desired.” Then the uncle asked the same question regarding the flesh of the deer, the turkey, the fat entrails of the bear, the liver of the bear, and various other [[601]]substances, receiving from his nephew in each instance a negative answer. Finally, he asked, in an attempt to throw the youth off of his guard, “Oh, my nephew! what can you mean? What is it you desire?” But the youth, alert and crafty, replied, “Pshaw! are you not seeking to divine the ‘word of my dream,’ and still you want me to give you a clue to it?” The old man replied, “But I have now named all the things that I own.” He kept walking up and down in his own part of the lodge. Again the time was nearly up—it was almost midday. So the old man said, “Well, so be it; perhaps you may mean in your desire, suggested by the ‘word of the dream,’ my leggings?” His nephew answered, “No; that is not what is desired.” Once more the uncle suggested, “My breechclout?” The nephew answered as before, “No; that is not what is desired.” Then the old man, seeking to gain time, remarked, “I am wondering, Oh, my nephew! what it is that you desire?”
Then the nephew, becoming wearied with the dilatory tactics of his uncle, began to sing, as before, “Yuʹʻhĕñ, yuʹʻhĕñ, he and I are bartering by exchange; yuʹʻhĕñ, yuʹʻhĕñ, Sʻhogoⁿʻʹgwāʼs yuʹʻhĕñ, yuʹʻhĕñ, he is my uncle, yuʹʻhĕñ, yuʹʻhĕñ.” Again the flames burst up out of the ground all around the place where the uncle was standing, with the sound dauñʻʹ. Thereupon the old man exclaimed, “Oh, my nephew! do not be too hasty with that thing.” As the time had not yet fully arrived to end this test, the youth willed that the flames subside, and with the sound dauñʻʹ they quickly subsided.
Then the old man resumed his questions, saying “Perhaps you may mean in your desire, suggested by the ‘word of the dream,’ my otter-skin robe?” The nephew replied, “No; that is not what is desired.” Next the old man named “my bow and arrows, which I so dearly prize?”
The nephew, Gādjisʹdodoʻ, was walking to and fro in his own part of the lodge, looking every now and then to see whether the sun had reached the meridian, for he knew well that the time was almost up. Finally, to test the endurance of the old man, he again began to sing, using the words of the song for this kind of a ceremony: “Yuʹʻhĕñ, yuʹʻhĕñ, he and I are bartering by exchange; yuʹʻhĕñ, yuʹʻhĕñ, Sʻhogoⁿʻʹgwāʼs yuʹʻhĕñ, yuʹʻhĕñ, and he is my uncle, yuʹʻhĕñ, yuʹʻhĕñ.”
With a loud dauñʻʹ the flames again burst forth from the ground all around the old man, who now climbed up the bark wall of the lodge to escape them, at the same time crying out, “Oh, my nephew! do not be too hasty with that thing.” Knowing his mastery of the old man, the youth willed once more that the flames should subside, and they did so. Whereupon the old man descended from his place of refuge on the bark wall. [[602]]
The old man said to his nephew, “At no time must you lay the heavy hand of punishment on me;” but he would not admit defeat. The youth answered, “The time is now nearly up, and I can not change in any manner the command given me by the dream.” With these words he again began to walk to and fro, singing his wonted song, at which the flames burst forth once more from the ground all around the place in which the old man moved, burning his hair and even his eyelashes.