The old man promised that he would skin the animals and stretch their hides as his share of the work.

The young man went out to catch salmon on the river.  After he caught a number of fish, he decided to travel farther up the river and came to a village.  Taking the fish he had caught, he went into the village and was invited into the house of the headman, to whom he offered the fish.

He met a strangely dressed and distressed young man in the house, but he did not inquire after his health and left the next morning very early, continuing up the river on foot.  He came to a small house in a clearing and, seeing footprints and tracks from a dog around the yard, went to the door and announced his presence.  There was no answer, and the young man entered to find a woman with a child, who was crying uncontrollably.  The woman told the young man her story: She had come to live with her husband in his house.  The husband was a very good hunter and brought home many deer and bears.  She was expecting a baby and went out one day to gather firewood.  Her father-in-law told her of a spot with a great deal of firewood, and the woman came to this house in which she rested after gathering wood.  The father-in-law was to wait for her in the house, but went home instead, and the young woman could not find her way back.  So she had her baby in the house and had been there ever since.

The worst thing about the place was a bear that came every night with horrible growls, shaking the house terribly.  Then a dog came from somewhere else and fought with the bear.  They fought and fought and she was more frightened every night, as she thought that each night would be her last.  The only thing that saved her, she thought, was a small carved wolf given to her by her brother to protect her.

The young man realized that the woman was from the house that he had visited the last evening and vowed to take her back the next day.  But that night the sounds of the fight between the bear and the dog were heard again.  Just before dawn, the young man took his bow and quiver and set off after the fighting animals, whose sound now came from farther and farther away. 

He followed their tracks by the blood and fur on the snow and found them locked in combat.  But as soon as the animals saw the young man, the dog vanished.  The young man turned his attention to the bear and found it under some trees a little ahead.  He took an arrow from his quiver and killed it.  He then brushed the leaves from the body, made an altar for the bear, and returned to the woman.