STORIES 493

on her, until, when she was just before him, she threw down the whet-
stone; it became a massive stone rampart entirely hiding her.

She continued her journey and presently came to a house, through a
crack in the wall of which she saw a man. It was A?guntim, but she was
not aware of this. He sensed her presence and greeted the girl:

“T have known for some time that you would come, for you have fled
from your home in trouble. I have been waiting for you, you shall be
my wife. Don’t be afraid; come in.”

The girl slowly entered though almost driven back by the great heat.
Atquniém rubbed his hands over her face and at once she ceased to feel it.
The two sat down and had supper together very happily. Presently
Stump appeared.

“Have you seen my wife?” he roared through the doorway.

“Perhaps this is she,” replied A/guntim. “Come in and see.”

Stump’s head was so big that he could not get through the door, but,
by craning his neck, he could see that it was his lost wife inside, and he
called out that she was there. A?guntim wrapped his blankets around
himself and went to the door, then suddenly threw them open, whereupon
the heat was so great that Stump’s branching head caught fire. He was
consumed entirely, not even ashes were left.

The girl lived happily with A#guntém, soon giving birth toason. The
infant grew with such remarkable speed that when he was the size and
had the appearance of a child of three, he had the intelligence of a man.
Realizing that his mother was lonely and sometimes wished to see her
parents, he told his father of this; A?guntdm was grateful for the sug-
gestion.

“Don’t fret,”’ he said to his wife. ‘“Your mother is not far away.”

The woman looked down and saw her home as if it were just beneath
her feet.

“Tf you want to visit your mother,” continued her husband, “‘you can
do so on my eye-lashes.”’

By “‘eye_lashes” he meant the beams of the sun on which the thoughts
of mortals penetrate to Aguntim. .

Next morning the woman took her child, descended on A/guniém’s
eye_lashes and soon landed at the door of her father’s house. Her mother
Was weeping, as indeed she had done incessantly since the loss of her
daughter. The girl did not enter at once, but rapped with a stick on the
wall near where her mother was sitting. The woman thought that some-
one was being mischievous and sent a little girl of six to investigate.

“Tt is my sister, with a baby,” she called out as she came running back.

“Don’t lie to me,” the mother answered. ‘‘It is impossible, your
sister has been dead for more than a year.”