Page:The strange story book.djvu/129

 wisely, but the young men quickly picked up the copper and carried it into the chief's house, each man crying out that it was he who had hit the copper and had gained the chief's daughter. But as they could not all have hit it, the chief knew that they were a pack of liars and only bade them wait a while, and he would see. As for the poor little boy, he did not want to marry the girl or anyone else, so he did not mind what the young men said.

Nothing more was heard that day of the winner of the prize, but at night a white bear came to the back of the house, and growled loudly.

'Whoever kills that white bear shall marry my daughter,' said the chief, and not a youth slept all through the village, wondering how best to kill the white bear, and between them they made so many plans that it seemed as if the white bear could never escape. In the evening, the poor little boy went down to the beach again, and sat upon a rock looking out to sea, till at last he beheld a man approaching him, but it was not the same man whom he had seen before.

'What are the people talking about in the village?' asked the man, just as the other had done, and the poor little boy answered:

'Last night a white bear appeared behind the house. Whoever kills it shall marry the chief's daughter.'

The man nodded his head and thought for a moment; then he said:

'Ask the chief for a bow and arrow: you shall shoot it.' So the poor little boy got up and left the beach, and returned to the village.

When it grew dark, all the young men met in the house of the chief, and the poor little boy stole in after them. The chief took from a shelf a tall quiver containing a quantity of bows and arrows, and he held them to the fire in order to make them supple. Then he gave a bow and two arrows to each man, but to the poor little boy, his own nephew, he gave nothing.

'Give me a bow and arrows also,' said the poor little boy,