“So the years sped by. The king showed his age not a whit, save by his snowy locks; and peace ruled throughout the land.
“At last Manitou the Mighty called his chiefs, his ‘children,’ together in council.
“‘I am going away,’ he said, ‘to far-off countries, perhaps never to return. But I shall know of my subjects, and shall leave them a book of laws and directions, and they shall still be my children, and I shall be their father and king.’
“Then the chiefs hid their faces and went out to the people with the sorrowful tidings. And when the next morn broke, the Manitou had vanished.
“A week passed; and now began jealousies, hatred, avarice, tumults.”
“Why didn’t they obey the laws in that book?” asked Kittie.
“Well, in the first place, some professed to believe that the chiefs made up the story about the book altogether, and had written the laws themselves; though a child might have known that no other than Manitou could possibly have thought and written out such glorious and gentle words as the law book contained. Others pretended to live by the book, but so twisted the meaning of its words that the result was worse than if they had openly transgressed the law.
“So matters went on, from bad to worse. Messages arrived now and then from the king, with pleading and warning words, but in vain.
“There came a day, in the dead of winter, when the chiefs met in stormy conclave. Each one would be king. ‘Manitou,’ cried one and another, ‘called me his child, said I was a prince! Who shall rule over me!’
“The sound of a far-off avalanche, high up among the ice-fields of the mountains, interrupted the assembly. Clouds gathered, black and ominous. Rain-drops fell, hissing, upon the pine-tops and the wigwams of Manitou’s wayward children. A hurricane arose, and swept away into the roaring flood of the rapidly rising river all the wealth they had been so eager to gain. The rumbling of avalanche upon avalanche grew more terrible, nearer, nearer. The people turned to fly, with one accord, but it was too late. Behold, the Manitou stood in their midst, his long white beard tossed in the storm, his terrible eyes flashing not with rage, but with grieved love.