He of the Little Shell

The giant, giving vent to his feelings with many loud rumbling words, looked sharply around to see whether he could discover any tracks. He could find none. The unknown had stepped too lightly to leave the slightest mark behind.

The next day the giant resolved to disappoint his mysterious follower by going to the beaver-dam very early; and accordingly, when the little shell man came to the place he found the fresh traces of his work, but the giant had already gone away. He followed hard upon his tracks, but he failed to overtake him. When he of the little shell came in sight of the lodge, the stranger was in front of it, employed in skinning his beavers.

As Dais-Imid stood looking at him—for he had been all this time invisible—he thought:

"I will let him have a view of me."

Presently the man, who proved to be no less a personage than the celebrated giant, Manabozho, looked up and saw him.

After regarding him with attention, "Who are you, little man?" said Manabozho. "I have a mind to kill you."

The little hero of the shell replied:

"If you were to try to kill me you could not do it."

With this speech of the little man, Manabozho grabbed at him; but when he thought to have had him in his hand, he was gone.

"Where are you now, little man?" cried Manabozho.

"Here, under your girdle," answered the shell-dwarf; at which giant Manabozho, thinking to crush him, slapped down his great hand with all his might; but on unloosing his girdle he was disappointed at finding no dwarf there.

"Where are you now, little man?" he cried again, in a greater rage than ever.

"In your right nostril!" the dwarf replied; whereupon the giant Manabozho seized himself by the finger and thumb at the place, and gave it a violent tweak; but as he immediately heard the voice of the dwarf at a distance upon the ground, he was satisfied that he had only pulled his own nose to no purpose.

"Good-by, Manabozho," said the voice of the invisible dwarf. "Count your beaver-tails, and you will find that I have taken another for my sister;" for he of the little shell never, in his wanderings or pastimes, forgot his sister and her wishes.