Ko-ko turned about and laughed to scorn the proposal, and putting forth his right foot from the lodge first, an observance in which he had great hopes, he started for the lodge of the wicked father.
Ko-ko ran very fast, as if he feared he should lose the chance of massacring any member of the wicked family, until he came in sight of the lodge hanging upon the tree.
He then slackened his pace, and crept forward with a wary eye lest somebody might chance to be looking out at the door. All was, however, still up there; and Ko-ko clasped the tree and began to climb.
Away went the lodge, and up went Ko-ko, puffing and panting, after it. And it was not a great while before the Owl had puffed and panted away all the wind he had to spare; and yet the lodge kept flying aloft, higher, higher. What was to be done!
Ko-ko of course bethought him of the bones, for that was just what, as he knew, had occurred to Onwee Bahmondang under the like circumstances.
He had the bones in his bosom; and now it was necessary for him to be a squirrel. He immediately called on several guardian spirits whom he knew of by name, and requested them to convert him into a squirrel. But not one of all them seemed to pay the slightest attention to his request; for there he hung, the same heavy-limbed, big-headed, be-clubbed, and be-blanketed Ko-ko as ever.
He then desired that they would turn him into an opossum; an application which met with the same luck as the previous one. After this he petitioned to be a wolf, a gophir, a dog, or a bear—if they would be so obliging. The guardian spirits were either all deaf, or indifferent to his wishes, or absent on some other business.
Ko-ko, in spite of all his begging and supplication and beseeching, was obliged to be still Ko-ko.
"The bones, however," he said, to himself, "are good. I shall get a nice rest, at any rate, if I am forced to climb as I am."
With this he drew out one of the bones from his bosom, and shouting aloud, "Ho! ho! who is there?" he thrust it into the trunk of the tree, and would have indulged himself in a rest; but being no more than a common fish-bone, without the slightest savor of magic in it, it snapped with Ko-ko, who came tumbling down, with the door of the lodge which he had shaken loose, rattling after him.