Page:The strange story book.djvu/92

 and if they had been playing any games with the children. But no one had seen them; and for seven days the mother wandered from one place to another, but she could never find any trace of them.

All this time the two girls were walking about the woods not knowing where they went, and looking vainly for fruit or berries, as they were very hungry. At last the path they were following led upwards, and they found themselves among the mountains. A faint sound as of somebody chopping wood a long distance off reached their ears, and the elder sister said to herself, 'I wonder if that is the man that mother was talking of.' By and bye the sound grew clearer and clearer, and on turning a corner they came upon the wood-cutter, with his face painted red, standing over a fallen tree. As the girls approached he looked up and said:

'What are you two doing here?'

'Mother was unkind to us,' answered the elder, 'so we came away.'

'What had you done to vex her?' asked the man.

'We had eaten some food between our meals, and she said, "If you are so fond of eating, you had better go and marry Mountain Dweller." '

'Well, come into my house,' said Mountain Dweller, for it was he who was chopping the wood, and they went with him and he took them all over it, and very fine it was. Last of all he led them into a store-house full of dried meat, salmon, and deer, and halibut. They gazed at it hungrily, though they did not say anything, but Mountain Dweller saw their eyes and gave them food which they gladly ate; and they slept there all that night, as they did not know where else to go.

Next morning they got up very early and found Mountain Dweller making ready to hunt, drawing on his leggings and choosing his weapons.

'We will be married to-morrow,' said he, 'but to-day I have a long way to walk, and I shall not be back till nightfall. And before I go, I want to warn you not to peep behind the