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"My friend," said Monedowa, "is this all your speed?" The manito made no answer. Monedowa had resumed his character of a hunter, and was within a run of the winning-post, when the wicked manito had nearly overtaken him. "Bakah! bakah! nejee!" he called out to Monedowa; "stop, my friend, I wish to talk to you." Monedowa laughed aloud as he replied: "I will speak to you at the starting-post.
It was noticed, however, that Monedowa himself ate but little, and that of a peculiar kind of meat, flavored with berries, which, with other circumstances, convinced them that he was not as the Indian people around him. In a few days his mother-in-law told him that the manito would come to pay them a visit, to see how the young man, her son, prospered.
Monedowa, cheered by a joyful shout from his own people, leaped to the post. The manito came on with fear in his face. "My friend," he said, "spare my life;" and then added, in a low voice, as if he would not that the others should hear it, "Give me to live." And he began to move off as if the request had been granted. "As you have done to others," replied Monedowa, "so shall it be done to you."
Monedowa partook of it first, to show his guest that he need not fear, saying at the same time, "It is a feast, and as we seldom meet, we must eat all that is placed on the dish, as a mark of gratitude to the Great Spirit for permitting me to kill animals, and for the pleasure of seeing you, and partaking of it with you."
When the mudjee monedo espied his competitor before him, "Whoa! whoa!" he exclaimed; "this is strange;" and he immediately changed himself into a wolf, and sped past Monedowa. As he galloped by, Monedowa heard a noise from his throat, and he knew that he was still in distress from the birch-bud which he had swallowed at his mother-in-law's lodge.
"But before we start," said the manito, "I wish it to be understood that when men run with me I make a wager, and I expect them to abide by it life against life." "Very well be it so," answered Monedowa. "We shall see whose head is to be dashed against the stone." "We shall," rejoined the mudjee monedo. "I am very old, but I shall try and make a run."
He directed also that the manito should be hospitably received, as if he had been just the kind-hearted old Indian he professed to be. Monedowa then dressed himself as a warrior, embellishing his visage with tints of red, to show that he was prepared for either war or peace.
The manito was very pleasant with Monedowa, and after much other discourse, in a gentle-spoken voice, he invited him to the racing-ground, saying it was a manly amusement, that he would have an excellent chance to meet there with other warriors, and that he should himself be pleased to run with him. Monedowa would have excused himself, saying that he knew nothing of running.
The old body in which he had disguised himself was well-nigh shaken in pieces, for he had, as Monedowa expected, swallowed a grain of the birch-bud, and this, which relished to himself as being of the bird nature, greatly distressed the old manito, who partook of the character of an animal, or four-footed thing.
What follows, may teach him, my mother, to show pity on the vanquished, and not to trample on the widow and those who are without fathers." When the day of the visit of the manito arrived, Monedowa told his wife to prepare certain pieces of meat, which he pointed out to her, together with two or three buds of the birch-tree, which he requested her to put in the pot.
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