One of the Kâsq!ague'dî named Floating (NAlxâ'c), living at Wrangell, had a wife called Axtcî'k! who kept running away from him. He was a great hunter and hunted continually among the mountains of Bradfield canal accompanied by his slave. One day, as they were pulling along in a canoe while the dogs ran on shore, they heard the dogs barking at a certain place. They landed and ran thither. Then they saw the dogs lying on the ground with saliva dropping from their mouths, while a small bear ran along some distance off. The hunter saw this bear climb up the side of a cliff and was about to pursue it when he suddenly lost all of his strength and lay there just like his dogs. He watched the bear, however, and saw it go into a hole in the very middle of the cliff. Then he said, "That is not a bear. It could not have climbed up there and have gone into that cliff had it been one. It must be something else."
Floating thought a great deal of his wife and was suffering much because she had now been gone from him for eight months.
When he saw this bear go into the inaccessible hole in the cliff, he went back to town and made a very large, strong rope out of roots and a cedar-bark basket large enough to hold one person. With these he went back again to the cliff and climbed to a position above the hole the bear had entered. Then he tied a rope around his slave's waist, and another to the basket and put the slave inside. He was going to lower him down to the hole.
Now the man said to his slave, "When I get you to the mouth of the hole, shake this basket very hard so that I may know it." He gave him a little wooden dipper and said, "Dip that into the hole and see what you get out." Then he lowered the slave. When the latter put his dipper into the hole it came out filled with ants. Then the slave screamed, but his master said, "I will let you drop if you don't hold up. Put that dipper in again and see what you bring out. The slave