Soon the smoke arose from the pipe; then Hatʻhondas told what he had heard, imitating the call of a bird. “Oh, nephew! that is nothing. Go again to-morrow,” said the uncle. He went the next day, and heard a bird of some other kind. After rushing to the lodge as before, and after his uncle had lighted the pipe, he told his uncle what he had heard. Each day he heard a new bird and told his uncle what he had heard. After several such fruitless trips to the ravine he heard two women singing, “I am going [am on my way] to marry Dooehdanegen.”[42] The women were moving through the air coming toward his uncle’s lodge. Hatʻhondas rushed home almost breathless, crying, “Oh, uncle! I have heard it.” “Well, what is it?” asked the uncle, and straightway he lighted his pipe and the smoke arose from it. “I heard two women singing, ‘I am going to marry Dooehdanegen,’ and they are coming this way,” declared the nephew. “We must make ready to receive them,” said the uncle; “we must put the lodge in order.” He therefore smoothed the skins on his couch and put his nephew’s bed away from his own in the corner near the ashes, telling his nephew to lie there while the women were in the lodge, and to face the other way, and further to keep quiet and not to show his face. The old man then put on his best garments, with two feathers in his cap, and tried to be as nimble and bright as when a young man. He kept sending his nephew out to see how near the women were. When at last they reached the lodge the nephew ran in, crying, “Oh, uncle, they are here.” “Go to your bed; lie down, and do not stir,” said the uncle.
The women entered the lodge, bringing a basket of marriage bread.[43] The old man hurried around to make it pleasant for them, but could not interest them, for their minds were elsewhere. They kept looking toward the corner where Hatʻhondas was lying. When night came the old man spread out the skins of his couch and told [[140]]them there was the place for them to lie down; but, going over to the corner where the ashes were piled, they lay down with Hatʻhondas. They smoothed his hair and fondled him, speaking pleasant words to and about him. The old man was very angry and slept none that night. The women left the lodge at daybreak. When Hatʻhondas awoke, he had become a man in full vigor, strong and fine looking.
The old uncle now called his nephew, saying: “You now have become a man. You must follow the women. The mother bears the most noted name in sorcery in her tribe. She is now seeking a husband for her daughter. Near her lodge grows a large hickory tree[44] on which sits an eagle as a target. Whoever can bring down that eagle will get the daughter. Men go there from every direction and place to shoot at it, but no one has yet hit it. You must shoot at it, too.”
The old man then brought out from his chest an outfit consisting of a cap of otter skin, a panther-skin coat, leggings of wildcat skin, moccasins of owl skin, and a tobacco pouch of fawn skin. The garments, which were beautiful and endowed with rare orenda (magic power), fitted the young man well. Then the uncle took the garments off his nephew; and the cap became a live otter, the robe, or mantle, a live panther, the leggings a pair of live wildcats, and the moccasins two live owls. Again he put the garments on his nephew, telling him to sit down. The latter did so and, opening the pouch, took out a pipe, which he filled with tobacco. Immediately two girl sprites and two trick pigeons leaped out of the pouch; the girls brought fire to light the pipe, and as soon as he put it to his mouth the two pigeons, which were perched on the stem, rustled their wings and cooed, being very happy.
“Now, my nephew,” said the old man, “spit.” He spat and the spittle fell to the ground in a shower of wampum beads. “That is enough,” said the uncle; “you shall always spit wampum from this pipe. Your outfit will always do what it has done to-day. Now you must start. Go directly east. About noon you will find a trail. Take that and keep on until you come to the great hickory tree. Here are a bow and arrows. The arrows will never miss the mark. On the road you must keep no man company. Sleep alone and hurry on your way.”
So the young nephew set out. In an hour he came to a trail. Finding it so soon, he thought it could not be the right one and ran back to inquire. “Oh! you are a swift runner,” said the uncle; “you found the right trail. Follow it.” Hatʻhondas started again. Again he found the trail, which bore toward the east. Near evening he saw a man who was making a fire by the wayside, and who inquired of Hatʻhondas, “Where are you going?” “Oh! where all are going—to shoot at the eagle on the hickory tree,” replied the [[141]]young man. “Stay with me. It is too late to go farther,” said the stranger. “No! I must go on,” answered Hatʻhondas, hurrying away. At night he built a fire and slept by himself. The next day he went on without interruption until evening, when a man who was building a fire beside the trail urged him to stop, but he refused to do so. Again the man urged him but Hatʻhondas would go on.
The third evening he came on a man who insisted and coaxed so much that he remained with him overnight. Each occupied one side of the fire. After supper, Hatʻhondas took off his garments and soon fell asleep. The strange man attempted to steal the clothes, but the mantle, changing into a panther, would not let him come near. Then the man, bit by bit, fed meat to the panther until the animal was pacified, when he put the mantle on his own shoulders. So with the leggings and all the other things, until at last he got possession of the whole outfit of the young man, except the bow and arrows, which he forgot. When ready, he thrust a sharp dart of hickory bark down the backbone of Hatʻhondas, and at daylight hurried away to the company which had gathered at the great woman’s lodge to shoot at the eagle.
Hatʻhondas awoke in terrible pain; he was doubled up like an old man and began to cough badly. After much effort and great suffering, he succeeded in putting on the other man’s garments and in dragging himself some distance to a log, on which he sat, holding his bow and arrows, with his head bowed in sorrow.
After he had been sitting there a couple of hours, a poor, destitute-looking girl came to him, saying: “My mother lives not far from here. I will take you to her.” On going home with the girl he learned that her mother was his own sister and that she was therefore his niece. He told his sister about the visit of the two women, about setting out to shoot the eagle and being robbed on the road of everything but his bow and arrows, and, lastly, about becoming decrepit and aged-looking from the effects of the hickory bark thrust down his backbone. His sister and her daughter were very poor. They had no meat. As they were talking, a robin perched on the edge of the smoke-hole. Hatʻhondas drew his bow with great difficulty and shot an arrow which killed the bird. His sister cut it into small pieces and, bruising them, made some soup, which in a measure strengthened her brother. The next day a partridge came in like manner and he killed that, too; and then a turkey, so they had provision enough. Many days later his sister drew the bark from her brother’s back and he became well again.
As he sat by the door one day he heard a great shouting and tumult, and asked what it meant. They told him that it was the sounds made by those who had assembled to shoot the eagle, and [[142]]pointed out the great hickory tree, the top of which could be seen above the forest, seemingly not more than 200 or 300 rods away.