Seegwun with his sharp hunting knife cut a limb from an ash-tree, and made a bow; from an oak bough he whittled some arrows, which he tipped with flint. He found feathers fallen from a gull's wing for the shaft; a strip cut from his deer-skin shirt supplied the bow-string. Then giving the bow and arrow to Ioscoda, to practice with, he gathered some seed pods from the wild rose, to stay their hunger.
An arrow, badly aimed by his brother, fell into the lake, and Seegwun waded in, to recover it. He had walked into the water till it reached his waist, and put out his hand to grasp the arrow, when suddenly, as if by magic, a canoe came skimming along like a bird. In the canoe was an ugly old man, who reached out, seized the astonished boy, and pulled him on board.
"If I must go with you, take my brother, too!" begged Seegwun. "If he is left here, all alone, he will starve."
But Mish-o-sha, the Magician, only laughed. Then striking the side of the canoe with his hand, and uttering the magic words, Chemaun Poll, it shot across the lake like a thing alive, so that the beach was quickly lost to sight. Soon it came to rest on a sandy shore, and Mish-o-sha, leaping out, beckoned him to follow.
They had landed on an island. Before them, in a grove of cedars, were two wigwams, or lodges; from the smaller one two lovely young girls came out, and stood looking at them.
To Seegwun, who had never before seen a girl, these maidens looked like spirits from the skies. He gazed at them in wonder, half expecting they would vanish. For their part they looked at him without smiling; in their dark eyes were only sympathy and sadness.
"My daughters!" said the old man to Seegwun, with a chuckle that displayed his long, yellow teeth. Then turning to the girls:
"Are you not glad to see me safely back?" he asked,"and are you not pleased with my handsome young friend here?" They bent their heads politely, but said nothing.
"It's a long time since you were favored with such a visitor," he went on, in a loud whisper to the elder girl. "He would make you a fine husband."