All this time Waso had kept these things a secret, but as the summer drew to a close, he led his father to the distant grave. He told the chieftain the strange story, and, when he had finished, pointed to where there rose from the center of the stranger’s grave a plant whose like had never been seen before by the chieftain. As tall as a man it stood, straight and green, with broad shining leaves waving in the autumn breeze, topped by silky bright brown hair and nodding green plumes. From either side grew long green husks full of pearly white grains, sweet and juicy to the taste. [Illustration: HE CARRIED WATER IN GOURDS] “It is my friend come back to me,” cried Waso. “It is Mandowmin, the Indian corn. It is the gift of the Great Spirit, and so long as we renew it from year to year, and watch and tend it, we need never fear the famine.” That night, round the grave of Mandowmin, the members of the tribe held a feast and thanked the Great Spirit for his goodness. Awahnee and the Giant Awahnee and the Giant Years and years ago, when there were no white men in all the great land we now call North America and the Indians were free to roam the woods, living by the fish they speared and the deer they shot, men knew very little about the world in which they lived. They did not understand why we have day and night, sun and moon, summer and winter, and so they made up all sorts of pretty stories about these strange facts. When the last leaves of autumn had fallen, and the Indians were glad to huddle around the fires in their wigwams, little Indian boys and girls would ask their elders: “Why does it grow colder?” “Will it ever be warm again?” and dozens of other questions. And here is the tale that the old men of one tribe always told the little folks in answer. Long ago, there lived a great hunter, A-wah-nee, a tall young brave. No one in all his tribe could shoot an arrow so far or so straight as could A-wah-nee. When he was still a very young man, his fame had spread even beyond his own land to other tribes. He kept two great pet wolves as hunting dogs, huge fierce animals that were the terror of the tribe. And well they might be, too, for they were under a spell. When A-wah-nee was deep in the forest and saw a deer near him, he had only to say “Up wolves” and in an instant they were as big as bears and had pounced upon the deer. Then he would say “Down wolves” and once more they would be their own proper size. In a few years the deer in the forest, on the edge of which A-wah-nee and his grandmother lived in a small wigwam, had grown so clever and wary that they kept themselves hidden away all the day and roamed only at night. Presently A-wah-nee began to long for other forests where the deer were not so shy. At last one day he brought in from the hunt a half dozen fine deer.