THE MAGIC ARROW 161

hearts of all the lads; his manner was so terrifying
that Kadonah trembled.

“Run!” whispered one of the lads. “Run quickly!”

Kadonah hesitated but a moment. His father had
heard him utter another falsehood, had seen him
shoot the sacred raven with the forbidden bow and
arrow! Terrible would be the punishment for this dou-
ble wrong-doing—not to be borne! He stooped and
snatched his own bow and arrow from the ground
and leaped into the forest. There he ran, without
looking back or stopping, on and on and on for a long
time.

He did not know that his father had not followed
him; he did not know that the chief had commanded the
other lads to return to the village and say nothing
of what had happened there in the forest. Breathless,
terrified, the unfortunate lad ran on, careful, in spite
of his panic, not to leave a footprint in the muskeag
or a track in the mud; wading icy streams, walking
on fallen logs and rocks until he came to a river,
swollen by the thawing snows in the mountains to the
eastward.

Undaunted, he plunged in and swam across. Cold
was the water, cold with the chill of the ice-fields on
the ridges above the narrow valley, so that Kadonah’s
teeth were chattering and his body was numb as he
climbed slowly up out of the river on the other bank.

Here he rested for a time, warming himself in the
sunshine behind a huge boulder. But he dared not