At this, Iagoo, turning around, broke his long silence. "There was a time," he said, mysteriously, "when a thousand boys such as Eagle Feather would have been no match at all for that mouse as he used to be."
"When was that?" asked Eagle Feather, looking uneasily at his sister.
"In the days of the great Dormouse," answered Iagoo. "In the days, long ago, when there were many more animals than men on the earth, and the biggest of all the beasts was the Dormouse. Then something strange happened—something that never happened before or since. Shall I tell you about it?"
"O, please do!" begged Morning Glory.
"The story I am going to tell you," began Iagoo, "is not so much a story about the Dormouse as it is a story about a little boy and his sister. Yet had it not been for the Dormouse, I would not be here to tell about it, and you would not be here to listen.
"To begin with, you must understand that the world in those days was a different sort of place from what it is now.
O yes, a different sort of place. People did not eat the flesh of animals. They lived on berries, and roots, and wild vegetables. The Great Spirit, who made all things on land, and in the sky and water, had not yet given men Mon-da-min, the Indian corn. There was no fire to give them heat, or to cook with. In all the world there was just one small fire, watched by two old witches who let nobody come near it; and until Coyote, the prairie wolf, came along and stole some of this fire, the food that people could manage to get was eaten raw, the way it grew."
"They must have been pretty hungry," said Morning Glory..
"O, yes, they were hungry," agreed Iagoo. "But that was not all. There were so many animals, and so few men,