"Ni'-nah O-kyai'-yu! Ni'-nah O-kyai'-yu! Chief Bear! Chief Bear! Nap'-i I-nit'-si-wah Ni'-nah O-kyai'-yu!" Old Man kill him Chief Bear! "What do you say?" cried Old Man. The frog repeated what he had said.
"Ah!" exclaimed Old Man, "tell me all about it."
"The Chief Bear and his brothers," replied the frog, "were playing on the sand, when Old Man shot arrows into them. They are not dead, but the arrows are very near their hearts; if you should shove ever so little on them, the points would cut their hearts. I am going after medicine now to cure them."
Then Old Man killed the frog and skinned her, and put the hide on himself and swam back to the island, and hopped up toward the bears, crying at every step, "Ni'-nah O-kyai'-yu!" just as the frog had done.
"Hurry," cried the Chief Bear.
"Yes," replied Old Man, and he went up and shoved the arrow into his heart.
"I cured him; he is asleep now," he cried, and he went up and shoved the arrow into the biggest brother's heart. "I cured them; they are asleep now"; and he went up and shoved the arrow into the other bear's heart. Then he built a big fire and skinned the bears, and tried out the fat and poured it into a hollow in the ground; and he called all the animals to come and roll in it, that they might be fat. And all the animals came and rolled in it. The bears came first and rolled in it, that is the reason they get so fat. Last of all came the rabbits, and the grease was almost all gone; but they filled their paws with it and rubbed it on their backs and between their hind legs. That is the reason why rabbits have two such large layers of fat on their backs, and that is what makes them so fat between the hind legs.
[NOTE.—The four preceding stories show the serious side of Old Man's character. Those which follow represent him as malicious, foolish, and impotent.]
THE WONDERFUL BIRD
One day, as Old Man was walking about in the woods, he saw something very queer. A bird was sitting on the limb of a tree making a strange noise, and every time it made this noise, its eyes would go out of its head and fasten on the tree; then it would make another kind of a noise, and its eyes would come back to their places.