“Why should I?” asked the Big Medicine Elk. “Did not I save you in the Yellowstone,” said Moh-Kwa, “when as you swam the river a drifting tree caught in your antlers an’ held down your head to drown you? An’ did you not bawl to me who searched for berries on the bank; an’ did I not swim to you an’ save you from the tree?” Still the Big Medicine Elk shook his antlers. “What you say is of another day. You saved me an’ that is ended. I will not give you back the Strongarm for that. One does not drink the water that is gone by.” Moh-Kwa then grew so angry his eyes burned red like fire, an’ he threatened to kill the Big-Medicine Elk. But the Big Medicine Elk laughed like the fish laughed, for he said he could not be killed by any who lived on the land. “Then we will go to the water,” said Moh-Kwa; an’ with that he took the Big Medicine Elk in his great hairy arms an’ carried him kicking an’ struggling to the Yellowstone; for Moh-Kwa could hold the Big Medicine Elk though he could not hurt him. When Moh-Kwa had carried the Big Medicine Elk to the river, he sat down on the bank an’ waited with the Big Medicine Elk in his arms until a tree came floating down. Then Moh-Kwa swam with the Big Medicine Elk to the tree an’ tangled the branches in the antlers of the Big Medicine Elk so that he was fast with his nose under the water an’ was sure to drown. “Now you are as you were when I helped you,” said Moh-Kwa. An’ the Catfish people in the river came with joy an’ bit the legs of the Big Medicine Elk, an’ said, “Thank you, Moh-Kwa; you do well to bring us food now an’ then since you eat so many fish.” As Moh-Kwa turned to swim again to the bank, he said over his shoulder to the Big Medicine Elk: “Now you may sing your death song, for Pauguk, the Death, is in the river with you an’ those are Pauguk’s catfish which gnaw your legs.” At this the Big Medicine Elk said between his cries of grief an’ fear that if Moh-Kwa would save him out of the river, he would tell him how to have the Strongarm back. So Moh-Kwa went again an’ freed the Big Medicine Elk from the tree an’ carried him to the bank, while the Catfish people followed, angrily crying: “Is this fair, Moh-Kwa? Do you give an’ then do you take away? Moh-Kwa! you are a Pawnee!” When the Big Medicine Elk had got his breath an’ wiped the tears from his eyes, he told Moh-Kwa that the only way to bring the Strongarm back to be a hunter from being one of the hunted was for Feather-foot, his son, to cut his throat; an’ for the Blossom, his squaw, to burn his elk-body with cedar boughs. “An’ why his son, the Feather-foot?” asked Moh-Kwa. “Because the Feather-foot owes the Strongarm a life,” replied the Big Medicine Elk. “Is not Strongarm the Feather-foot’s father an’ does not the son owe the father his life?” Moh-Kwa saw this was true talk, so he let the Big Medicine Elk go free.