"Well," said Jack, "that's a great story. Wouldn't it be fun to go around among the Indian tribes and try to hunt up those Blackfeet and tell them about their relations up North?" "Yes," added Mason, "that's a good story. I remember now that that's just about what John Monroe told me; but I couldn't have told it the way Hugh did." "It's a good story," said Hugh, "but it's a story that a good many tribes of Indians tell. I've heard the Cheyennes tell the same story; and the Sarcees, and the Crows. Now I wonder if it isn't just some old legend founded on something that maybe really did happen once, but that has been adopted by half a dozen tribes that don't seem to be any kin to each other, as far as we know? "One time, when I was younger and heard this same story told by two tribes, I thought maybe I'd found the people that used to belong to the Blackfeet; but I reckon that's not so. You know, if you've traveled around, that you'll find lots of different tribes that have the same story and each tribe thinks the story belongs to it. Nobody knows where that story originally came from, nor to whom it actually belongs." "Say, Hugh," Mason asked, "did you ever hear that story told by John Monroe, about the first time the north Indians saw the white people?" "Yes," replied Hugh, "I've heard that story; but a good while ago, and I don't feel sure that I could tell it. Do you remember it well enough to give it to us?" "Well, I don't know that I do; but, if you'd like, I'll try it." "Pitch in," said Hugh; and McIntyre added, "Go it, Mason." "This happened a long time ago, old John Monroe said, but how long, of course, I can't tell, any more than he could; but, according to the story, this was the first time the Blackfeet ever saw any white people. John said that old Su' ta ne told him the story and Su' ta ne said that his grandfather was one of the Blackfeet people. It happened when the Blackfeet were living up North, as I've just told you about. Here's the story: "A party of Indians were traveling south, and while they were going through a big patch of timber on the north of some big river, they saw something that they could not understand. It looked like beaver work where beavers had been cutting down trees, but when they looked at the stumps and the cuttings they could see that no beaver that they knew anything about could possibly have opened its mouth wide enough to cut such chips. They talked and wondered about this and finally concluded that the tree must have been cut down by some mysterious animal. You know the Blackfeet are great fellows for believing that there are strange animals and people living under the water, and they thought that this work must have been done by under-water animals.