right, and threw them in the basket on her back, starting for home
along the lonely forest trail.

As I have said, E-ish-so-oolth was tall, and many times bent her head
to pass beneath low and spreading branches, and so it happened when
stooping under a tree which brushed the basket top, four little hands
gripped tightly hold of a kindly branch and held on fast.

When E-ish-so-oolth had gone on further not missing the two children,
they clambered down, and partly freed their eyes from the vile pitch,
running for home as fast as they could go. To their mothers they
told the story, and how their playmates of that very morning, were
now perchance within the witch's lodge, and no help to save them
from a bloody fate. Then all the mothers of the kidnapped girls
chanted the weird and doleful death lament. Four days and nights the
dismal song was heard, beyond the blue wood smoke of Indian fires.
Weeks of mourning passed, and all but one were comforted, but she
sat all alone, and every morning she squatted on the sea grass at
the shore, chanting that drear and mournful song.


THE BIRTH OF EUT-LE-TEN

Early one morning as she sat and cried, her tears flowed down and
formed a little pool, a very little pool among the grass, the lank
sea grass stems on which she crouched. Surprised, she saw a movement
in the sand, the pool of tears was being changed into a child, a very
little child, so small that when the mother picked up a mussel shell,
she could cradle the small form within its pearly curve. Gently she
carried it to her dark lodge, and set it in a safe and quiet place.