Strengthened, and rendered cheerful and buoyant, by invigorating food and refreshing sleep, our father's steps were light, and his journey was soon near its completion. He soon trod upon the banks of his beloved river; a few more suns and he would sit down upon the very spot, where, for so many seasons, he had crawled on the slimy leaf, so often dragged his lazy legs over the muddy pool. He had seated himself upon the bank of the river, and was meditating deeply on these things, when up crept from the water a stranger looking animal with four legs, a broad tail covered with scales like a fish, and two short ears nearly hidden by the long fur which covered his body. His colour was that of the berry which grows within a prickly husk,[A] and is eaten by our Indian people with their roasted opossums. Approaching our father in a saucy and menacing manner, and displaying a set of teeth which were none of the handsomest, he demanded, in an angry tone, "Who are you?" [Footnote A: The chesnut.] "I am a snail," answered our father. "Who are you?" "I am head-warrior of the nation of beavers," answered the other. "By what authority have you come to disturb my possession of this river? We have held it from the time that Chappewee's musk-rat brought up the earth from the bottom of the deep waters. By what right do you come to disturb our possession of this river?" "It is not your river," answered the Wasbasha. "It has been mine ever since the melted snows ran into it. It was mine while I was a weak, and foolish, and lazy snail; and it is surely mine now I am a wise and valiant man, and a courageous and expert hunter." While they stood quarreling hard, and at the point of coming to blows, there crept out of the water another creature--a young maiden beaver--just like the one who was disputing our father's right to his land, only far more beautiful and glossy. She enquired what they were quarrelling about. "Why," answered the chief warrior of the beavers, "the strange creature with whom I was talking, and who, I am sure, is nothing but a polecat sewed up in a deer-skin, says he owns all the river. He says the Great Being who is over man and beast, the Master whom even beavers worship, gave it to him." "Is that all?" replied the maiden; "but you need not answer, for I listened with a curious ear to your discourse, and heard it all. It is not worth going to war about, father--make peace with the stranger, and each of you retain a sufficiency of the water of the river for his purposes; and then you can help each other when enemies assail you." And then, casting a fond look upon the Osage, she called her father aside, and whispered a long time in his ear, frequently turning her beautiful eyes, bright with love, upon our ancestor. When they had done talking, the old warrior came up to the son of the snail and asked him, in an altered tone, to go home with him to his cabin. So the Osage went home with the chief beaver and his beautiful daughter.