The West told him to banish his fears, and to speak up; no one would
hurt him. Manabozho began again, and he would have gone over the same
make-believe of pain, had not his father, whose strength he knew was
more than a match for his own, threatened to pitch him into a river
about five miles off. At last he cried out:

"Father, since you will know, it is the root of the bulrush." He who
could with perfect ease spin a sentence a whole day long, seemed to be
exhausted by the effort of pronouncing that one word, "bulrush."

Some time after Manabozho observed: "I will get some of the black rock,
merely to see how it looks."

"Well," said the father, "I will also get a little of the bulrush root,
to learn how it tastes."

They were both double-dealing with each other, and in their hearts
getting ready for some desperate work. They had no sooner separated
for the evening than Manabozho was striding off the couple of hundred
miles necessary to bring him to the place where the black rock was to
be procured, while down the other side of the mountain hurried
Ningabinn, the West.

At the break of day they each appeared at the great level on the
mountain-top, Manabozho with twenty loads, at least, of the black
stone, on one side, and on the other the West, with a whole meadow of
bulrush in his arms.

Manabozho was the first to strike-hurling a great piece of the black
rock, which struck the West directly between the eyes, and he returned