FOOTNOTES:
[26] Told by White-Bear.
26. THE ELK RESCUES A WOMAN FROM THE BEAR.[27]
There was a young man who fell in love with a certain girl in a village. This girl was the daughter of a chief, and she was very pretty. The young man was poor. He had no ponies, no relatives, but was often looking for them. The young girl fell in love with the young man, and so they planned to run away. The young man took some flint stones, bow and arrows, a knife and some robes, and went to the girl’s lodge. He took the girl out, and they rode on ponies. They went off into a wild country by themselves. There they stayed. They made a tipi. The young man went out every day to kill deer, so that now they had plenty of meat all the time. The young man thought a great deal of his wife. The only time he left her was in the daytime. The young man killed so many deer that the woman made buckskin dresses for herself, and also buckskin leggings for the man. The young man killed many elk, and the teeth of the elk were put upon the buckskin dresses. They made a big new tipi. They had much dried meat.
One day the young man said: “I will stop hunting. I will now go to yonder hill, and I will try to catch some eagles.” So the young man went up on a hill, and he caught many eagles. He took them to his home. One time while he was in a den, waiting for an eagle to alight so that he could catch it, somebody came to his camping place and took away his wife. This being was a Bear. The Bear had turned into a man and had come to the camp. He had a robe about his shoulders, bear’s claws about his neck, and he smelled so fine that the woman could not help but like him. When the man started to go the woman wanted to follow him. She finally left everything that she had and followed the man. This man was a Bear, and he led her into a den where there were a dozen or more women that he had taken from their husbands. In the evening, the young man got out from his cave, went to his camp, and found his wife gone, but everything else was in its place. The eagles that he had killed were there. He knew by this that if the enemy had taken her they would have taken the eagles too. So he hunted and hunted and yelled. At last he gave out. He went along the timber and finally an Elk found him.
The young man told the Elk that he had lost his wife; that he thought a great deal of her; and that now he was about dead from hunting her. The Elk told him that he was going to help him to get his wife back, but that he would have to fight. The Elk taught the man how to transform himself into an Elk. He also gave him a whistle, and told him that he whistled when he wanted female Elk to come to him, and that when he whistled they all rushed to him. The Elk told the young man to remain in the timber; that he would go and watch for the Bear; and that when the Bear should be gone, he would come and let him know, so that the young man might go and blow the whistle, while the Bear was gone. The Bear left his den and went out for a long distance. The Elk knew this. It came and told the young man. The young man went up close to the place where the den was and blew the whistle. As soon as his wife heard the whistle she said, “Women, let us go; that is my husband.” Some of the women were afraid to go, for they were afraid of the Bear; but the young man kept on whistling, and when the women heard it again they all rose and walked out of the den. They followed the young man’s wife, who was now running to where the young man was standing. The young man saw his wife and was happy. He embraced her, and said, “Go, I will remain behind, for the Bear will surely come after you.”
The Elk now came, and said: “The Bear is coming. Watch. Fix your bow and arrows so that you can shoot the Bear, while I put my head down and thus make a kind of barrier so that he can not get through, on account of my horns.” The Bear came, and as he attacked the Elk the Elk put his head down so that the Bear could not get through, and as the Elk began to lift its head up it brought its head and the whole weight of its horns upon the Bear, thus sticking its horns into the Bear’s body, while the young man shot at the Bear with his arrows. They killed the Bear. The Elk now turned to the young man, and said, “I shall now go to my place.” But the young man said, “No, I shall only take my wife; you take the other women.” So the Elk took the other women, and they all turned into Elk. For this reason, when a male elk whistles, all the female elk run to him.