"Lazy Kwasind!" shouted the young men, as they ran their races and played their games upon the meadows, "why do you stay idle while we strive with one another? Leave the rock that you are leaning on and join us. Come and wrestle with us, and see who can pitch the quoit the farthest." Kwasind did not say a word in answer to them, but rose and slowly turned to the huge rock on which he had been leaning. He gripped it with both hands, tore it from the ground and pitched it right into the swift Pauwating River, where you can still see it in the summer months, as it towers high above the current. Once as Kwasind with his companions was sailing down the foaming rapids of the Pauwating he saw a beaver in the water--Ahmeek, the King of Beavers--who was struggling against the savage current. Without a word, Kwasind leaped into the water and chased the beaver in and out among the whirlpools. He followed the beaver among the islands, dove after him to the bottom of the river and stayed under water so long that his companions believed him dead and cried out: "Alas, we shall see Kwasind no more! He is drowned in the whirlpool!" But Kwasind's head showed at last above the water and he swam ashore, carrying the King of Beavers dead upon his shoulders. These were the sort of men that Hiawatha chose to be his friends. VII HIAWATHA'S SAILING ONCE Hiawatha was sitting alone beside the swift and mighty river Taquamenaw, and he longed for a canoe with which he might explore the river from bank to bank, and learn to know all its rapids and its shallows. And Hiawatha set about building himself a canoe such as he needed, and he called upon the forest to give him aid: "Give me your bark, O Birch Tree!" cried Hiawatha; "I will build me a light canoe for sailing that shall float upon the river like a yellow leaf in autumn. Lay aside your cloak, O Birch Tree, for the summer time is coming." And the birch tree sighed and rustled in the breeze, murmuring sadly: "Take my cloak, O Hiawatha!" With his knife Hiawatha cut around the trunk of the birch-tree just beneath the branches until the sap came oozing forth; and he also cut the bark around the tree-trunk just above the roots. He slashed the bark from top to bottom, raised it with wooden wedges and stripped it from the trunk of the tree without a crack in all its golden surface. "Give me your boughs, O Cedar!" cried Hiawatha. "Give me your strong and pliant branches, to make my canoe firmer and tougher beneath me." Through all the branches of the cedar there swept a noise as if somebody were crying with horror, but the tree at last bent downward and whispered: "Take my boughs, O Hiawatha." He cut down the boughs of the cedar and made them into a framework with the shape of two bows bent together, and he covered this framework with the rich and yellow bark.