The Coyote woke up and was very mad. Profectus, ventrem facere volebat. Dum defæcavit, multos lepores parvos emisit, qui autem extemplo evanuerunt. Idcirco viatus est. Itaque pallium suum deposuit, ut, cum defæcavisset, eo lepores prehendere posset. Cum igitur in pallio defæcavisset, se lepores eo prehendisse arbitratus, pallium stipite iterum atque iterum feriebat. Cum autem pallium aperuisset, nihil nisi excrementum repperit. He dragged the robe along and gave it to a Stone that was lying near by. When the Coyote turned around to look at the robe that he had given to the Stone, he saw that it was clean and white. So he went and took the robe, and as he dragged it away from the Stone he found that it was as before. Again he gave the robe to the Stone, and said: “It is yours; I did not mean to take it.” The Coyote started off again, but he looked back and he saw that the robe was all painted in colors and was very beautiful. He went and pulled on it to take it away, and again it was as at first. Four times the Coyote gave the robe back to the Stone, and four times he took it away from the Stone.
At last the Stone moved, for it was angry, and the Stone ran after the Coyote. The Coyote ran down a hill, crying: “Father and mother Bull-Bats, this Stone that is running after me called you names! I told him that I would tell you Bull-Bats, and now he is trying to kill me!” The Bull-Bats told the Coyote to climb up a tree, where the young Bull-Bats were. The Bull-Bats expelled flatus on the Stone and broke it all to pieces. The Bull-Bats, as soon as the Stone was broken to pieces, flew up high in the sky, and when they were gone the Coyote saw the young ones in their nest and ate them up; then he came down from the tree. The Bull-Bats missed their young ones and they knew that it must have been the Coyote who had eaten them, for they heard the young ones crying in the Coyote’s belly. They were mad, and they expelled flatus on the Coyote and killed him.
Because the Coyote is up to all kinds of mischief he is often killed, and this is why we so often find a dead Coyote on the prairies.
FOOTNOTES:
[60] Told by Cut-Arm.
60. HOW THE SCALPED-MAN LOST HIS WIFE.[61]
One time the women went into the timber to gather some grapes. One of the girls went far. She saw some grapes away up in a tree, so she climbed the tree to get them. While she was up there, a Scalped-Man found her. The woman cried for help, but the other women had already gone home. The woman came down from the tree and went with the Scalped-Man to his den. But before getting to the den, they had to cross a creek. Before they crossed the creek, the girl said, “Now, if you will just go in and swim and wash your head, then I will be your wife and will not be afraid of you.” The girl made the Scalped-Man dive many times, and while he was diving she ran away and came to a grapevine, and crawled under it.
When the Scalped-Man came out from the water the girl was missing. He followed her tracks to the grapevine, and he said, “You are to come out from there!” But the girl said nothing. After a while he went on. He kept going through the timber back and forth, until at last he gave up. The woman got out from the place, and ran home. She told her people about the Scalped-Man.
FOOTNOTES:
[61] Told by Many-Fox.