Part 8

"Now we will make you large," said they. "Will that do?"

"Yes," he answered; for he found that he was ten times the size of the largest.

"You need not go out," said the others; "we will bring you food into the lodge, and you will be our chief."

"Very well," Grasshopper answered. He thought, "I will stay here and grow fat at their expense." But, soon after, one ran into the lodge, out of breath, crying out, "We are visited by the Indians!"

All huddled together in great fear. The water began to lower, for the hunters had broken down the dam, and they soon heard them on the roof of the lodge, breaking it up. Out jumped all the beavers into the water, and so escaped.

Grasshopper tried to follow them; but, unfortunately, to gratify his ambition, they had made him so large that he could not creep out at the hole. He tried to call them back, but either they did not hear or would not attend to him; he worried himself so much in searching for a door to let him out, that he looked like a great bladder, swollen and blistering in the sun, and the sweat stood out upon his forehead in knobs and huge bubbles.

Although he heard and understood every word that the hunters spoke--and some of their expressions suggested terrible ideas--he could not turn himself back into a man. He had chosen to be a beaver, and a beaver he must be. One of the hunters, a prying little man, with a single lock dangling over one eye--this inquisitive little fellow put his head in at the top of the lodge. "Ty-au!" cried he. "Tut ty-au! Me-shau-mik--king of beavers is in." Whereupon the whole crowd of hunters began upon him with their clubs, and knocked his scull about until it was no harder than a morass in the middle of summer. Grasshopper thought as well as ever he did, although he was a beaver; and he felt that he was in a rather foolish scrape, inhabiting the carcass of a beaver.

Presently seven or eight of the hunters hoisted his body upon long poles, and marched away home with him. As they went, he reflected in this manner: "What will become of me? My ghost or shadow will not die after they get me to their lodges."

Invitations were immediately sent out for a grand feast; but as soon as his body got cold, his soul being uncomfortable in a house without heat, flew off.

Having reassumed his mortal shape, Grasshopper found himself standing near a prairie. After walking a distance, he saw a herd of elk feeding. He admired their apparent ease and enjoyment of life, and thought there could be nothing more pleasant than the liberty of running about and feeding on the prairies. He had been a water animal and now he wished to become a land animal, to learn what passed in an elk's head as he roved about. He asked them if they could not turn him into one of themselves.

"Yes," they answered, after a pause. "Get down on your hands and feet."

He obeyed their directions, and forthwith found himself to be an elk.

"I want big horns, big feet," said he; "I wish to be very large;" for all the conceit and vain-glory had not been knocked out of Grasshopper, even by the sturdy thwacks of the hunters' clubs.

"Yes, yes," they answered. "There," exerting their power, "are you big enough?"

"That will do," he replied; for, looking into a lake hard by, Grasshopper saw that he was very large. They spent their time in grazing and running to and fro; but what astonished Grasshopper, although he often lifted up his head and directed his eyes that way, he could never see the stars, which he had so admired as a human being.

Being rather cold, one day, Grasshopper went into a thick wood for shelter, whither he was followed by most of the herd. They had not been long there when some elks from behind passed the others like a strong wind, calling out:

"The hunters are after us!"

All took the alarm, and off they ran, Grasshopper with the rest.

"Keep out on the plains," they said. But it was too late to profit by this advice, for they had already got entangled in the thick woods. Grasshopper soon scented the hunters, who were closely following his trail for they had left all the others and were making after him in full cry. He jumped furiously, dashed through the underwood, and broke down whole groves of saplings in his flight. But this only made it the harder for him to get on, such a huge and lusty elk was he by his own request.

Presently, as he dashed past an open space, he felt an arrow in his side. They could not well miss it, he presented so wide a mark to the shot. He bounded over trees under the smart, but the shafts clattered thicker and thicker at his ribs, and at last one entered his heart. He fell to the ground, and heard the whoop of triumph sounded by the hunters. On coming up, they looked on the carcass with astonishment, and with their hands up to their mouths, exclaimed: "Ty-au! ty-au!"

There were about sixty in the party, who had come out on a special hunt, as one of their number had, the day before, observed his large tracks on the plains. When they had skinned him his flesh grew cold, and his spirit took its flight from the dead body, and Grasshopper found himself in human shape, with a bow and arrows.

But his passion for adventure was not yet cooled; for on coming to a large lake with a sandy beach, he saw a large flock of brant, and speaking to them in the brant language, he requested them to make a brant of him.

"Yes," they replied, at once; for the brant is a bird of a very obliging disposition.

"But I want to be very large," he said. There was no end to the ambition of little Grasshopper.

"Very well," they answered; and he soon found himself a large brant, all the others standing gazing in astonishment at his great size.

"You must fly as leader," they said.

"No," answered Grasshopper; "I will fly behind."

"Very well," rejoined the brant; "one thing more we have to say to you, brother Grasshopper" (for he had told them his name). "You must be careful, in flying, not to look down, for something may happen to you."