THE DOG AND THE ROOT DIGGER
This happened long ago.
In those days the people were hungry. No buffalo could be found, no antelope were seen on the prairie. Grass grew in the trails where the elk and the deer used to travel. There was not even a rabbit in the brush. Then the people prayed, "Oh, Napi, help us now or we must die. The buffalo and the deer are gone. It is useless to kindle the morning fires; our arrows are useless to us; our knives remain in their sheaths."
Then Napi set out to find where the game was, and with him went a young man, the son of a chief. For many days they travelled over the prairies. They could see no game; roots and berries were their only food. One day they climbed to the crest of a high ridge, and as they looked off over the country they saw far away by a stream a lonely lodge.
"Who can it be?" asked the young man. "Who camps there alone, far from friends?"
"That," said Napi, "is he who has hidden all the animals from the people. He has a wife and a little son." Then they went down near to the lodge and Napi told the young man what to do. Napi changed himself into a little dog, and he said, "This is I." The young man changed himself into a root digger and he said, "This is I." Pretty soon the little boy, who was playing about near the lodge, found the dog and carried it to his father, saying, "See what a pretty little dog I have found."
The father said, "That is not a dog; throw it away!" The little boy cried, but his father made him take the dog out of the lodge. Then the boy found the root digger, and again picking up the dog, he carried both into the lodge, saying, "Look, mother; see what a pretty root digger I have found."
"Throw them away," said his father; "throw them both away. That is not a root digger; that is not a dog."