“Now be off,” she said, “you and your dog!”
The boy started down the path talking to his dog. “I will not yield, I will demand yielding,” he said. “I will not be pursued, I will pursue, I will not see failure, I will succeed.”
For two days he journeyed down the trail that led to the allies’ country. At dawn on the third day there was a wild trampling in the forest and from the thicket rushed the nī’´gwahē. The dog rushed forward with a yelp but the great beast merely opened his jaws and drew in a breath and with it the dog flew down his throat.
Picking up a stump, the boy dashed forward, yelling, “I am after you, you cannot escape me!”
Now it happens that these words are the very ones used by a nīa’´gwahē when it pursues its prey, and such a charm have these words, that, as the beast repeats them, animals and men become weak and fall down as victims of the creature’s cunning. When this nīa’´gwahē heard its own cry flung back in its face, it was surprised. Its own words were turned into its own ears. Then the great beast turned and fled.
“Ha, ha!” laughed the boy, “you cannot escape me!”
All day the nīa’´gwahē fled from the boy who pursued it crying shriller and sharper, “I am after you, you cannot escape me!”
The sun began to set and the boy sat down on a log to eat his owĭs´hä with a little water, but when he opened his pouch he found his food a mass of wriggling maggots.
“Agē!” he exclaimed, “this does not discourage me,” and leaping from his seat, he took up the chase again, following closely upon the heels of the nīa’´gwahē. “Oho’!” he cried, “You are the one for whom I am looking! Very soon I will kill you.”
The sun went under the hills and the black night came.