human
So it happened--attend to me well, my daughter--that Mamondago-kwa married a thing of rags and bones, put together with mud. But when the dawn broke her husband rose up and took a bow and spear, saying, 'I must go on a journey.' 'Then I will go with you,' said his bride. 'My journey is too long for you,' said the Muck-man. 'Not so,' answered she; 'there is no journey that I could not take beside you, no toil that I could not share for love of you.' He strode forth, and she followed him at a distance; and the Beau-man, who had kept watch all night outside their lodge, followed also at a distance, unseen. All the way along the rough road Mamondago-kwa called to her husband; but he went forward rapidly, not turning his head, and she could not overtake him. Soon, as the sun rose, he began to melt. Mamondago-kwa did not see the gloss go out of his clothes, nor his handsome features change back again into mud and snow and filth. But still as she followed she came on rags and feathers and scraps of clothing, fluttering on bushes or caught in the crevices of the rocks. She passed his mittens, his mocassins, his _mitases_, his coat, his plume of feathers. At length, as he melted, his footprints grew fainter, until she lost even his track on the snow. 'Moowis! Moowis!' she cried; but now there was none to answer her, for the Muck-man had returned to that out of which he was made.
gpt
And did the Beau-man find her and fetch her back?
human
The story does not say, to my knowledge; but it may be that Ononwe could tell you.
gpt
And yet you love Netawis?
human
So much that I keep him in trust for his good, against a day when he will go and never return. But that is not a maiden's way of loving, unless maidens have changed since I went a-courting them.