I went in,
I am all blue.)
On the fourth morning it shed all its feathers and came out in its bare skin, but on the fifth morning it came out with blue feathers.
All this while Coyote had been watching the bird; he wanted to jump in and get it, but was afraid of the water. But on that morning he said, "How is this all your ugly color has come out of you, and now you are all blue and gay and beautiful? You are more beautiful than anything that flies in the air. I want to be blue, too." Coyote was at that time a bright green. "I only went in four times," said the bird; and it taught Coyote the song, and he went in four times, and the fifth time he came out as blue as the little bird.
That made him feel very proud, because he turned into a blue coyote. He was so proud that as he walked along he looked about on every side to see if anyone was noticing how fine and blue he was. He looked to see if his shadow was blue, too, and so he was not watching the road, and presently he ran into a stump so hard that it threw him down in the dirt and he became dust-colored all over. And to this day all coyotes are the color of dirt.
THE BOY AND THE BEAST
Once an old woman lived with her daughter, son-in-law, and grandson. They were following the trail of the Apaches. Whenever a Pima sees the track of an Apache he draws a ring around it with a stick, and then he can catch him sooner. But at night while they were asleep the Apaches came and grasped the man and woman by the hair and shook them out of their skins as one would shake corn out of a sack, and the old woman and the boy were left alone. They had to live on berries, but in one place a strange beast, big enough to swallow people, camped by the bushes. The grandmother told the boy not to go there, but he disobeyed her; he took some very sharp stones in his hands and went. As he came near the animal began to breathe and the boy just went inside of him and was swallowed all up. But with his sharp stones he cut the intestines of the beast so that he died. When the grandmother came to hunt for the boy he came out to meet her and said, "I have killed the animal."
"Oh, no; such a little boy as you are to kill such a dangerous beast!"
"But I was inside of him; just look at the stones I cut him with."
Then she went up softly and saw the holes and believed. And after that they moved down among the berries and had all they wanted to eat.
