ANIMAL STORIES 179

they could do was to snatch his mittens, when the Badger slipped away under cover. Then the boys returned to their Wigwam, and soon an uncle, Kakakooch, the Crow, arrived. He hurried after the Badger, and succeeded in snatching his cap.

“Thank you!” said the Badger. “You have done me a great favour. I have been getting quite warm, and now I feel much better.”

Soon after, another relative, Kitpoo, the eagle, arrived. He too started in pursuit, and managed to get the Badger’s coat.

“Oh, thank you! Thank you!” called back the Badger. “I was just wishing that my brother were here to take my coat off for me.”

Then came the giant Culloo, and he vowed that he would punish the Badger well for all his mischief. He caught him by his back, and carried him up to the top of a high cliff, up to the very top of the sky itself, and set him down.

The Badger could look down upon his native land, and it was so far away that it looked smooth and green like a Wigwam newly car— peted with fir boughs. The Badger did not feel easy in his mind, by any means, but he always turned everything into sport. So he began to sing,

“Our country now lost, Seems clearly to us, As though it were all spread with boughs.