The feathers were all on his head; still the old man repeated, "Now, keep still."
Soon the maidens arrived and the old man opened the door. The younger of the two carried a beautiful basket on her back; this she set down near the old man. The boy looked around a little, and his father called out, "Dirty boy; hold your head down." The visitors looked around and thought, "What a place! what a place!" "Sit down, sit down," said the old man to the visitors, but although they removed the blankets they stood still. So he smoked on quietly.
When they saw how dirty it was where the boy sat they began to go around and clear up, and as the evening passed the lad did not know what to do with himself. They fixed themselves a clean bed on the other side of the wigwam. They refused to sit by the old man, and when at last the boy went to sleep they lifted him out of his dirty bed, strewn with ashes, and put him into their clean bed.
In the morning the younger one admired him and said, "What a beautiful young man!" Then they said, "We had better cook something." So they cooked corn and rice, and the boy ate with them, and the old father smoked. After a while he said, "Good woman; can clean up, can cook, can make good wife." Then he let the boy look up. The younger visitor sang again:
So the old man smoked his pipe and the sisters went back to their people. Then the two lived quietly together, but the young man often thought of the beautiful maidens.
One day as they were conversing the old man said, "Now you have become a young man you must go." "Which way," asked he, and the uncle replied, "You must go where those young maidens are who are chief's daughters. You must have fine bows and arrows; here they are--try them before you go. They give luck in hunting." Then he looked where he kept all the fine things for the young warriors and dressed him up well with a swan stuffed. "Now," said he, "when you take this outside it will be on your head, but it will soon come back to life, and when that happens you must run in a circle and return, and you will see that many deer and bears will follow your track." So off he went. When he returned he said that so many bears and so many deer came out every time as he crossed the track and he shot them, and took the best out and sent them home to show them to the old man. And all the time the swan was alive and beautiful.