Note 371 — TRADITIONS

Now there were three in the lodge. When he went off hunting the man often left the boys at home, telling them not to go far from the lodge. After the lapse of time, however, they began to venture farther and farther away from the lodge, until one day, when they were quite far off they saw that the leaves and grass and hills and valleys and everything else were moving together westward. Looking more closely, they saw a large body of land moving, even with game on it and moving as if it were a river. Presently they noticed a coon sitting on the moving ground and going along with this stream, or river, of land.371 Watching it made them forget everything. As the coon looked at the boys they were about to shoot it with their bows and arrows; one indeed drew his bow, but the coon held up his paw against his face to ward off the arrow. At last the elder boy said: “Let us go home now; we will come here tomorrow and play all day.”