I will give you my daughter for a
wife, and we will live happily together." Muckwa was inclined to accept
the old bear's offer; but when he saw the daughter, who came and took
off his wet moccasons, and gave him dry ones, he thought that he had
never seen any Indian woman so beautiful. He accepted the offer of the
chief of the bears, and lived with his wife very happily for some time.
He had by her two sons, one of whom was like an Indian, and the other
like a bear. When the bear-child was oppressed with heat, his mother
would take him into the deep cool caves, while the Indian-child would
shiver with cold, and cry after her in vain. As the autumn advanced, the
bears began to go out in search of acorns, and then the she-bear said to
Muckwa, "Stay at home here and watch our house, while I go to gather
some nuts." She departed and was gone for some days with her people.
By-and-by Muckwa became tired of staying at home, and thought that he
would go off to a distance and resume his favorite bear-hunting. He
accordingly started off, and at last came to a grove of lofty oaks,
which were full of large acorns. He found signs of bear, and soon espied
a fat she-bear on the top of a tree. He shot at her with a good aim, and
she fell, pierced by his unerring arrow. He went up to her, and found
it was his sister-in-law, who reproached him with his cruelty, and told
him to return to his own people. Muckwa returned quietly home, and
pretended not to have left his lodge.
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