"'Help!—Help!—Help!' but nobody heard him except the Night-hawk, and he told the OLD-man that he would help him all he could; so he flew away up in the air—so far that he looked like a black speck. Then he came down straight and struck that rock an awful blow—'swow!'—and broke it in two pieces. Indeed he did. The blow was so great that it spoiled the Night-hawk's bill, forever—made it queer in shape, and jammed his head, so that it is queer, too. But he broke the rock, and OLD-man stood upon his feet.
"'Thank you, Brother Night-hawk,' said OLD-man, 'now I will do something for you. I am going to make you different from other birds—make you so people will always notice you.'
"You know that when you break a rock the powdered stone is white, like snow; and there is always some of the white powder whenever you break a rock, by pounding it. Well, Old-man took some of the fine powdered stone and shook it on the Night-hawk's wings in spots and stripes—made the great white stripes you have seen on his wings, and told him that no other bird could have such marks on his clothes.
"All the Night-hawk's children dress the same way now; and they always will as long as there are Night-hawks. Of course their clothes make them proud; and that is why they keep at flying over people's heads—soaring and dipping and turning all the time, to show off their pretty wings.
"That is all for to-night. Muskrat, tell your father I would run Buffalo with him tomorrow—Ho!"
WHY THE MOUNTAIN-LION IS LONG AND LEAN
Have you ever seen the plains in the morning—a June morning, when the spurred lark soars and sings—when the plover calls, and the curlew pipes his shriller notes to the rising sun? Then is there music, indeed, for no bird outsings the spurred lark; and thanks to OLD-man he is not wanting in numbers, either. The plains are wonderful then—more wonderful than they are at this season of the year; but at all times they beckon and hold one as in a spell, especially when they are backed or bordered by a snow-capped mountain range. Looking toward the east they are boundless, but on their western edge superb mountains rear themselves.
All over this vast country the Indians roamed, following the great buffalo herds as did the wolves, and making their living with the bow and lance, since the horse came to them. In the very old days the "piskun" was used, and buffalo were enticed to follow a fantastically dressed man toward a cliff, far enough to get the herd moving in that direction, when the "buffalo-man" gained cover, and hidden Indians raised from their hiding places behind the animals, and drove them over the cliff, where they were killed in large numbers.
Not until Cortez came with his cavalry from Spain, were there horses on this continent, and then generations passed ere the plains tribes possessed this valuable animal, that so materially changed their lives. Dogs dragged the Indian's travois or packed his household goods in the days before the horse came, and for hundreds—perhaps thousands of years, these people had no other means of transporting their goods and chattels. As the Indian is slow to forget or change the ways of his father, we should pause before we brand him as wholly improvident, I think.