Page:Kutenai Tales.djvu/232

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Boas]
Kutenai Tales
217

it I into his eyes. Magpie did not shut his eyes. He was looking up. | Then his eyes began to water. They were filled with dirt. Therefore | they are this way. He said: "Raven flew back this way." |

Then at night they held a council. They said: "Who will ǁ go the 80 way he flew back?" Then they said: "Jack Rabbit | and Hare." On the following day the two youths started. | They went along. There was a river there. The wind blew toward them, | and they took his scent. Then they started, going up the river. | They saw a tent. It was the tent of two old women. ǁ They arrived there. 85 They did not know what it was. They saw many | tracks of buffaloes. They said to each other: "What shall we do?" | One said: "We will work our supernatural powers." One turned into a jack rabbit.[1] | The other became a stone. They staid there. | One of the old women went to draw water. She went to a water hole in the ice. ǁ There she saw a little dog near the water hole. | She did 90 not like it, and pushed it into the water hole. Then | the young dog was cold. The old woman went back. The other old woman | also went to draw water. She saw the pup there at the | water hole. It was almost frozen to death. ǁ She pitied it. It was thin. She took 95 it and started carrying it. | She went in, and said to her companion: "Why did you | do that?" She said to her: "It is poor; it will eat bones. | They must all be starved. Therefore this pup came here." | The other old woman went to get an anvil stone to pound ǁ dried 100 meat. She went along, and there was a good stone. | She started to carry it. She did not know that she had thrown into the water the one young man, | and that the other one was a stone. She carried it in. Then | the two youths worked their manitou powers. They staid there | in the tent of the old women. They staid there several days. ǁ Then the two youths ate. The old women did not 105 know it. | The two slept together during the night. On the following morning | the one was again a dog, and the other was a stone. | The two youths saw what happened | when the buffaloes came to that tent every night. ǁ There was a bladder hanging by the door, | and 110 there was a bunch of claws hanging there. When | the buffaloes came back, they shook the bladder | and the claws. |

At night they said to each other: "Let us start back to the town ǁ where they are hungry! Let us take back the buffaloes!" Then | they 115 started. They saw a great number of buffaloes. One | of the youths burst the bladder with a stick; the other | took the bunch of claws. Then the one started. That one was | first. Then the other one

started. There at the source of the river, ǁ where the buffaloes were,


  1. Evidently an error, for later on he is a pup.