Yoni, an old Indian, had lost his wife by death, so, to the custom of his people, he covered her body with birch-bark, and wrapped it in a large moose-skin. Then, with the help of his friends, he put the body on a platform high up in the boughs of a tall, young spruce-tree.

He then cut his hair very short, as a sign of mourning, and began to think how alone he would be during the long winter days.

The frost had come and touched the trees and bush, and the beautiful colors that the artist of Nature was painting upon them, just a little while before Nature destroyed the picture, began to appear in places here and there, all over the land. The fine birds that sang to Yoni, and the plain little wrens he loved best were leaving, one by one, to wing their ways to the Southland where the sun is always warm and smiling, and Jack Frost and his bearded old relation Father Winter are unknown.

Yoni had been very happy during the many years of his life. He was a good hunter, so of deer meat and fish he always had a plentiful supply. But his age, even with all the pleasant memories of the years gone by, meant to him in his solitude only sorrow and loneliness. He would have been glad if his wife, many years younger than he, could have lived to help him in his old age, but this was not to be.

He would sit outside his lodge, and watch the beavers working on their dam just across the river, and recall how he had told his wife, Noimi, who was very pretty in his eyes, that there was no one to compare with her in all the graces and virtues, that she must not go for wood when the nights were cold; and if she did, he would call her back and insist that she go into the tipi and sit by the fire, and if she wished, she could sew on the skins that would keep them warm during the winter.

He would waken at night, and out of the silence would come, from far across the lonely hills, the barking of the great timber-wolves, sounding like big dogs. Sometimes a stealthy bear would come with its cubs and tear down his fish-racks, and carry off the fish he had dressed and was drying for the winter. In the morning he would go out to see what damage they had done. He would never get angry, saying in a low voice: “Let them eat. It’s very bad to be hungry.” Then he would smile at their destruction, and with thin, trembling hands, try to straighten the poles.

Twice a day he would pull up his nets that were made of willow fibre. Sometimes there were many fish, and sometimes only a few—but he never complained, for there were always enough for his needs now that he was all alone—having not even a dog. The preceding fall he had had two, but one had wandered away and he had given the other to Moni, his friend, who lived just around the bend of the river, and who was busy hauling wood for his winter fires, so did not come to visit him so often as in summer. Moni was growing old also, and his children had left him, all but a daughter, and she was blind, and not much help.

One morning before it was very light, old Yoni heard a terrific splashing in the water above the place he tied his canoe. He had heard the connie or pike making a great rumpus when trying to catch a frog, but the splashing increased, so Yoni started for the shore as fast as his poor old legs could go. There he found a strange and very large fish splashing and floundering, and the more he floundered the more he became entangled in Yoni’s net, and the only one he had.

When the fish saw Yoni he called: “Come quickly and release me. I’m afraid I shall die. Come! I feel so strange.”

Yoni made no effort to untangle the monster, who was just twenty-five feet long to an inch.

“Oh!” thought Yoni, “You are a fine catch; you’ll be food for me all winter and much to spare; this I can barter with Moni for my winter’s wood.” And Yoni was pleased and smiled, and this he did not do very often.

The more the creature struggled, the more and the tighter the net held him.

“Hurry!” called the fish, not knowing what Yoni had been thinking about. Then he became perfectly still, and looking up at Yoni in a very appealing way said: “You are an old man. Get me out of this tangle and I will reward you.”

“How?” said Yoni, becoming very much interested to have an affair with a fish that could talk.

“There are many places and people,” said the fish, “along these great river ways that you have never seen.”

“Yes,” said Yoni, becoming more interested. “The Yellow Knife, the Dog Rib, the Cree and many tribes far away to the North.”

“I know their language,” said the fish. “Release me and I will take you where you will be among friends, and to those who will honor your old age. As you know, the rivers are long with many rapids that would upset your old canoe, and crush it on the rocks. Many of the portages are high hills, and many too rough and stony for your feet.”

“This is all very well in words,” said Yoni, “but you may be like many of the fur-traders who do not always speak words that are to be depended upon.”

Although the net was very tight about the neck of the fish, he managed to smile.

“Ah” said he, “fish who talk never are known to speak untruths. Release me, and I will prove to you my gratitude by taking you anywhere you wish to go.”

So Yoni, convinced that he was talking to a truthful fish, waded slowly arm deep in the water, and cut the tangled strands holding his new-found friend.

“Just a moment,” said the fish after the last strand binding his gills had been severed, and he straightened out to see if his tail and fins were in working order, “I’ll swim out a little way to see if everything is right for our journey.” So far from shore and nearly to the middle of the stream the fish swam.

“He’ll never come back,” thought Yoni, “and my net is in shreds.”

Far out, and out of sight the monster had gone. At first Yoni thought he would never believe the promise of a talking-fish again, but knowing he had saved the creature’s life, he thought he might keep faith with one who had so truly befriended him. Just as Yoni was really losing faith, the fish rose to the surface far out in midstream.

“I’m coming,” he called. “There are a few scales missing, but otherwise I’m all right for a long swim.”

Yoni was glad his confidence was justified, although he did begin to think the story was fishy, like others where fish were concerned.

“Wade out to the rock,” called the fish. “I’ll swim alongside; you get on my back and then we’ll be off for anywhere.”

So Yoni with some difficulty waded to the rock, and climbed upon it just as the fish rose alongside. Yoni got aboard, straddling the huge back as if he were riding a horse just as he had once done before he grew so old.

“Where shall we go, and what is your name?” asked the fish.

“Yoni,” replied the old Indian, “What is yours?”

“Piscatori,” answered the huge creature.

“What a strange name,” said Yoni, “I am afraid I cannot remember it. My memory is not so good as it was years ago.”

“That’s not important,” replied the fish. “Just call me Mr. Fish. I’ll understand.”

Yoni thought that was best, so he asked the fish to turn around and go down the river to a place where he had set his snares and traps the year before. So Mr. Fish turned around and began to swim so fast it took Yoni’s breath almost away.

“Not so fast, Mr. Fish,” called Yoni. “I’m afraid I’ll slip off.”

“Oh, no!” said Mr. Fish. “Hold onto my front fin. Look out you don’t prick your fingers, the points are sharp. If you get cold, lift up the fin, step down, and you’ll find a cosy room just large enough to hold you comfortably.”

So Yoni, being just a little chilly, with some difficulty raised the fin, and to his great joy and surprise he found such a cosy little place like a little room, with the floor and sides covered with the most beautifully colored scales—just as if they had stolen the tints from an Arctic rainbow or from the inside of a beautiful shell. And it was so warm, and Mr. Fish said, “Quite waterproof.”

Yoni had not been so really contented for many years. He sat upon a strange little seat, so soft and warm, and looking around he found to his great astonishment that each scale formed a little window through which he could look out. Mr. Fish was passing through the deepest part of the river, and Yoni could see so many strange water things, fish of many colors and shapes, turtles, eels, frogs, rocks with very beautiful clinging vines in which fish of many kinds were hiding. Yoni was in a maze of wonderment that was broken by the movement of Mr. Fish, who was pointing for the bank. Yoni looked out and recognized the place as the one at which he had camped many years before, and just across the river where the old elm was still standing, was the spot where he had first met Noimi, who afterward became his wife. This made him sad, but he felt better when he realized he had found a new friend and a very agreeable companion. Though he had not felt bold enough to ask, he thought Mr. Fish was much older than he himself was.

The fish swam to a great tree that had fallen into the water, due to the underwash of a swiftly flowing river and the grinding ice that cuts the banks in the spring.

“Get off here,” said Mr. Fish; and Yoni raised the fin and stepped out on the tree, and then climbed the steep bank. Mr. Fish, seeing how infirm the old man was, moved a little, then backing up, raised his strong tail and gave Yoni a gentle push.

“That is a great help,” said Yoni. Mr. Fish made no reply. He was thinking how unfortunate it was to be old, and of the “Tree of Youth” that grew where the waters of the Slave River flowed into the great lake of the same name.

Mr. Fish waited patiently for the old man to return from his wanderings, and when he did, his eyes were red from weeping.

“Cheer up,” said Mr. Fish, “we are going on a long journey. To go by canoe would take five or six days. If the water is not low, I can do it before sundown.”

“Good for you,” said Yoni, having great confidence in Mr. Fish as a means of transport.

Mr. Fish smiled. “I’ll give the old fellow the greatest surprise of his life,” said he to himself as he swished his tail to the right and to the left with the power of a great propeller.

“My! how fast we are going,” said Yoni aloud; and he told Mr. Fish so, but he was too busy dodging rocks and sunken timber to have answered even had he heard Yoni.

On Mr. Fish swam, cutting the corners of the river, winding his way between sunken ledges, leaping great rapids in which many a trapper’s scow had been crushed, as the little crosses on the graves on the banks can testify—struggling over shallow water, getting fast on sand-bars covered with wreckage from the great forests, held by boulders in narrow ways and pushing through with his muscular tail and wiggles—then down into deep water where things looked black and spooky to Yoni. For hours, fast and slow, the great physical being worked like a mighty engine.

“What will become of me?” thought Yoni, “if anything happens to Mr. Fish?”

As the sun was falling and the shadows were dying in the water, the craft of flesh pulled to the bank, and Yoni, a bit cramped from being so long in one position, got on the back of Mr. Fish and looked around to survey his surroundings.

“We’ll remain here to-night,” said the fish, as he wiped the perspiration from his kind face.

“You must be very tired,” observed Yoni.

“Oh, no!” answered Mr. Fish. “It’s a bit strenuous when one has a cargo aboard, to get over dry land when one is accustomed to a water route. Going back you’d better take your time—that is if I don’t go back with you.”

Yoni looked worried.

“Why have you brought me so far from home?” he asked.

“Don’t ask silly questions,” replied Mr. Fish. “On the bank yonder you’ll find some leaves and fagots. I’d help you if I could, but it makes me very short of wind to be out of water very long, so you will have to excuse me. Collect an armful, build a fire under the tree with the leaves all aflame with the ‘Fire of Youth’—that one” pointing with his fin. “There are berries enough on the hill for your supper. I’ll sleep in the black hole over there. It’s near the shore.”

Yoni went about gathering leaves and small sticks which he placed near the tree, as there were many spots showing little piles of ashes where fires had been built before. While he was standing under the strange tree, a leaf would now and again fall—it seemed to him, all aflame. One touched his forehead and fell to the ground. He stooped to pick it up, but just as his fingers touched it, it disappeared.

“What can be the meaning of this?” said Yoni to himself, and then he remembered Mr. Fish having said something about the “Fire of Youth.” A strange desire to sleep came over him, and all night he slept, dreaming strange dreams of fairies and places and people.

The sunshine chased away a gray dawn and shone straight in Yoni’s face. He turned to get away from the glare, and in turning he felt so strange that he partly awakened. Becoming wide-awake, he gripped the grass and leaves with a vigor long forgotten. He looked at his hands. They again had the appearance of youth. His limbs were hard and muscular. Looking down, he discovered he was wearing a beautifully embroidered suit of moose-skin made for him by Noimi many years before. Looking up, he saw that the tree under which he had fallen asleep was now bare of all foliage, and not a leaf was to be seen on the ground. Everything seemed strange to him.

“Mr. Fish! Mr. Fish!” called Yoni in a voice so strong it almost frightened him. “Where are you, Mr. Fish?”

Mr. Fish was so tired on account of his long journey, that Yoni had to call many times. At last the vibrations of Yoni’s voice touched the ear of the fish, and he awoke, moved his tail, blew the water, and swam slowly to the bank. Of course, he knew what had happened when he saw the young man on the shore. He smiled so hard that three scales loosened by the struggle of the day before fell off, and went sailing and sinking down-stream.

“Good morning! ... and good-by! Long life and always happy days to you. Seek Noimi in the lodge just over the hill. I’m off for the sea.”

Yoni called frantically, but Mr. Fish had gone so fast and far, he could not hear. He would not have come back if he had, having given to the old man “Youth,” some say, the most beautiful and precious of all things.