"Thou seemest too small of stature to undertake wrathful purposes, and all unfit to represent the mighty winds that rend the stubborn oak, and the fierce tempests that scatter yet wilder desolation," said the Teton chief, surveying, almost contemptuously, the diminutive form of the strange Spirit. "Tax but my powers--excite but my ire," said the demon, "and the chief of the Burntwood Tetons may rue the hour that gave birth to his doubts of the strength of the master of the northern blast. But why do I waste words upon thee? Bring hither my wicked wife." Seeing the angry and ireful Spirit determined upon mischief, the chief departed, his bosom filled with sorrow, to summon the beautiful and beloved Spirit of Snow to the presence of the being who claimed her as his wife. He found her not unapprised of the dreadful fate which awaited her. Bathed in tears, her head reclined on the shoulder of the doting Teton, sat the lovely Spirit, her eyes now bent on him she loved so fondly, and now on their beautiful children, who slept all unconscious of the grief which wrung their fond mother's bosom. At length, with sudden resolution, she rose from her seat, and, folding the beloved warrior to her breast in one long and passionate embrace, she left the cabin. "I have found thee at last," exclaimed the angry ruler of tempests, as the beautiful woman approached him. "Thou, who fledst from my arms to those of an earthly paramour, how dost thou like the exchange?" "So well," replied the trembling Spirit, "that if thou wilt consent to let me remain where I am, I will never return to thee or to my clime of snows." "Base-minded woman! And wilt thou abandon the glorious destiny of ruling the elements for the mean one of sharing in the labours of a Teton cabin?" "The destiny which thou deemest glorious may be well abandoned for that which thou holdest mean. However well it may once have suited me to dwell in the bleak climes of the north, and be the mistress of the flaky dew, it now more glads my heart to share in the labours of a Teton cabin. I know, from my own brief experience, that the fevers and agues of mortality are to be preferred a thousand times to the unvarying, unchanging, existence of a Spirit without passion, feeling, sympathy, love, or tenderness. I pray thee let me remain as I am, and where I am." "And so thou preferrest the earth to the sky; sensibility to insensibility; a humble Teton warrior to the mighty Spirit of the clime over which thou wast created to exert thyself a wondrous influence?" "Let it not displease thee that I do. I have become in love with the pains of human life, and delighted with the anxieties which cling to it, as moist snow clings to a pine in the warm spring." "Becoming a mortal being thou must die." "I shall first have lived." "Thy spirit--" "Disincumbered of its earthly load, will return to its former starry mansion."