“My father,” he said, “I have slept, and my dreams were sad.  I have slept, and my dreams were of failure and weakness.  The time does not please my Guardian Spirit.  It is not now that I can become a warrior.  I am not yet strong and old enough.  O my father, I cannot bear the fast longer!  I am so hungry, so thirsty, so faint!  Let me break my fast, and try again in another year.”

But the father sternly refused, for he was ambitious.  “Nay, lad,” he cried, frowningly.  “Would you fail me now?  Think of the glory, think of being the greatest of Ojibways.  It is but a few short days now.  Courage, Iadilla, be a man in strength and patience.”

Iadilla said no more.  He wrapped himself closer in his blanket and drew his belt tighter about his slender waist, trying to stifle the hunger gnawing there.  So he lay silently until the eleventh day.  That morning his father came to the lodge, beaming proudly.

“Bravo, my Iadilla!” he cried.  “Only one day more, and you will be released from your fast.”  But Iadilla clasped his hands beseechingly.

“My father,” gasped the poor boy.  “I cannot bear it another day.  I am not fit to be a great chief.  I have failed.  Give me food, or I die!”

But again the father refused.  “It is but a day now,” he said, “but a few short hours.  Bear a little longer, Iadilla.  To-morrow I myself will bring you the finest breakfast that ever a lad ate.  Courage, boy, for the few hours that remain.”

Iadilla was too weak to answer.  He lay motionless, with only a gentle heaving of his breast to show that he still lived.  His father left him for the last time, and went to prepare the morrow’s goodly breakfast, while the tribe planned a fine festival in honor of the young hero.

Early on the morrow came Iadilla’s father to the tent, proudly bearing the breakfast for his brave boy, and smiling to think how gladly he would be received.  But he stopped outside the tent door surprised to hear some one talking within.  Stooping to a little hole in the skin of the tent he peeped in to find who the speaker might be.  Imagine his surprise to find Iadilla standing upright in the middle of the tent painting his breast a brilliant red, as Indians do in war time.  And as he daubed on the colors he talked to himself.  He spoke softly, yet not with the weak voice of a starving lad; and his face was very beautiful to see, despite its pale thinness.

“My father has ended my Indian life,” he said.  “My father, too ambitious, has put upon me more than my strength could bear.  He would not listen to my prayer of weakness.  But I knew, I knew!  And my kind Guardian Spirit knew also that it was more than I could bear.  He has shown pity, seeing that I was obedient to my father and did my best to please him.  Now I am to be no longer an Indian boy.  I must take the shape which the Spirit has given me, and go away.”

At these strange words the father broke into the tent, exclaiming in terror,—­