Once upon a time, far back in the days when the elk, the moose, and the buffalo roamed over the hills and plains of North America, and little Indian children could call all the animals by name, there lived among one of the northern tribes a very unhappy little boy named Wasewahto.

His mother had been a chieftain’s[12] daughter, but she had died when the boy was a mere baby. His father had taken another wife, Wapiti—“the elk”—so called by reason of her large ugly head. Wasewahto’s father was dead now, too, and the little boy lived alone with his stepmother, who had no love for him and treated him very badly. He was too small to hunt and fish for his own food, and often Wapiti refused to share hers with him, giving him only a few bones to gnaw.

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