Then they all crowded around and begged him to go to the place where daylight was and bring them some.
Still the crow refused, and said he could not possibly get that light; but they coaxed him nicely, and the chief said, “O Crow, you are so clever and so brave, we know you can do that.”
At last the crow said, “Very well, I will go.”
The next day he started on his journey. Of course it was dark, but it was not stormy, and when he had said goodby to all the people he spread his wings and flew away toward the East, for the sun comes from the East.
He flew on and on in the dark, until his wings ached and he was very tired, but he never stopped.
After many days he began to see a little bit, dimly at first, then more and more, until the sky was flooded with light.
Perching on the branch of a tree to rest, he looked about him to see if he could find where the light came from. At last he saw that it was shining from a big snow house in a village nearby.
Now in that snow house lived the chief of the village, and that chief had a daughter who was very beautiful. This daughter came out of the house every day to fetch water from the ice hole in the river; which is the only way the Eskimos can get fresh water in winter. After she had come out, the crow slipped off his skin and hid it in the entrance of the house; then he covered himself with dust, and said some magic words, which sounded something like this:
“Ya-ka-ty, ta-ka-ty, na-ka-ty-O. Make me little that I won’t show. Only a tiny speck of dust, No one will notice me, I trust.”
Then he hid on a sunbeam in a crack near the door, and waited for the chief’s daughter.
When she had filled her seal-skin water-bag, she came back from the river, and the crow, who looked like nothing but a speck of dust floating on the sunbeam, lighted on her dress and passed with her through the door into the house where the daylight came from.
[Illustration: “At last he saw that it was shining from a big snow house”]
Inside, the place was very bright and sunny, and there was a dear little dark-eyed baby playing on the floor, on the skin of a polar bear which had recently been killed.
That baby had a lot of little toys, carved out of walrus ivory. There were tiny dogs and foxes, and little walrus heads, and kayaks (Eskimo canoes). He kept putting the toys into an ivory box with a cover, then spilling them out again.