Page:The art of story-telling, with nearly half a hundred stories, y Julia Darrow Cowles .. (IA artofstorytellin00cowl).pdf/79

 woods, he saw a squirrel in the branches of a tall red spruce tree, and, raising his bow, he shot an arrow at it. Down fell the squirrel, but the arrow lodged in the branches.

Then Ithenthiela started to climb after the arrow, but he had not climbed far when he heard a great pack of wolves howling at the foot of the tree. So he climbed higher, and as he mounted, the arrow went up, too.

Up, up, it went, until at last it came to the sky itself. The arrow passed through the thin blue, and Ithenthiela wriggled after it.

Great was Ithenthiela's surprise when he entered the Sky Country; it was so different from what he had expected. He had imagined a glorious country where the sun always shone, and where huge herds of musk-oxen, caribou, and moose roamed at large. He had expected to find many of his own people camped in wigwams here and there, preparing to fight with other tribes. But instead, the air was damp, dreary, and cold; no trees or flowers grew; no herds of animals ran on the silent plains; the smoke of no wigwam greeted his anxious eyes; no war-whoop or hunting cry was heard. But far in the distance against the sky shimmered a great