The young man went forth alone, and
hunted in the forest for many days.
Usually he was successful, but a day came
when he was hungry and could not find meat.
Then he sent forth one of the magic arrows,
and at the end of the day there lay a fat
Bear with the arrow in his side. The
hunter cut out the tongue for his meal,
and of the body of the bear he made a
thanks-offering to the Great Mystery.

Again he was in need, and again in the
morning he shot a magic arrow, and at
nightfall beside his camp-fire he found
an Elk lying with the arrow in his heart.
Once more he ate the tongue and offered
up the body as a sacrifice. The third
time he killed a Moose with his arrow,
and the fourth time a Buffalo.

After the fourth arrow had been spent,
the young man came one day out of the
forest, and before him there lay a great
circular village of skin lodges. At one
side, and some little way from the rest
of the people, he noticed a small and
poor tent where an old couple lived all
alone. At the edge of the wood he took
off his clothes and hid them in a hollow
tree. Then, touching the top of his
head with his staff, he turned himself
into a little ragged boy and went
toward the poor tent.

The old woman saw him coming, and said
to her old man: "Old man, let us keep
this little boy for our own! He seems
to be a fine bright-eyed little fellow,
and we are all alone."

"What are you thinking of, old woman?"
grumbled the old man. "We can hardly
keep ourselves, and yet you talk of
taking in a ragged little scamp from
nobody knows where!"

In the meantime the boy had come quite
near, and the old wife beckoned to him
to enter the lodge.

"Sit down, my grandson, sit down!" she
said, kindly, and, in spite of the old
man's black looks, she handed him a
small dish of parched corn, which was
all the food they had.

The boy ate and stayed on. By and by,
he said to the old woman: "Grandmother,
I should like to have grandfather make
me some arrows!"

"You hear, my old man?" said she. "It
will be very well for you to make some
little arrows for the boy."

"And why should I make arrows for a
strange little ragged boy?" grumbled
the old man.

However, he made two or three, and the
boy went hunting. In a short time he
returned with several small birds.
The old woman took them and pulled off
the feathers, thanking him and praising
him as she did so. She quickly made
the little birds into soup, of which
the old man ate gladly, and with the
soft feathers she stuffed a small pillow.

"You have done well, my grandson!"
he said; for they were really very poor.
Not long after, the boy said to his
adopted grandmother: "Grandmother, when
you see me at the edge of the wood
yonder, you must call out 'A Bear!
there goes a Bear!"

This she did, and the boy again sent
forth one of the magic arrows, which he
had taken from the body of his game
and kept by him. No sooner had he shot,
than he saw the same Bear he had
offered up, lying before him with the
arrow in his side!

Now there was great rejoicing in the
lodge of the poor old couple. While
they were out skinning the Bear and
cutting the meat in thin strips to dry,
the boy sat alone in the lodge. In
the pot on the fire was the Bear's
tongue, which he wanted for himself.

All at once a young girl stood in the
doorway. She drew her robe modestly
before her face as she said in a low
voice: "I come to borrow the mortar of
your grandmother!"

The boy gave her the mortar, and also
a piece of the tongue which he had
cooked, and she went away.

When all of the Bear meat was gone,
the boy sent forth a second arrow and
killed an Elk, and with the third and
fourth he shot the Moose and the Buffalo
as before, each time recovering his arrow.

Soon after, he heard that the people of
the large village were in trouble. A
great Red Eagle, it was said, flew over
the village every day at dawn, and the
people believed that it was a bird of
evil omen, for they no longer had any
success in hunting. None of their
braves had been able to shoot the Eagle,
and the chief had offered his only
daughter in marriage to the man who
should kill it.

When the boy heard this, he went out
early the next morning and lay in wait
for the Red Eagle. At the touch of his
magic arrow, it fell at his feet, and
the boy pulled out his arrow and went
home without speaking to anyone.

But the thankful people followed him
to the poor little lodge, and when
they had found him, they brought the
chief's beautiful daughter to be his
wife. Lo, she was the girl who had
come to borrow his grandmother's mortar!

Then he went back to the hollow tree
where his clothes were hidden and came
back a handsome young man, richly
dressed for his wedding.