"How numerous, how many are there of ye?" inquired [one of] the Hairy Breasts.
"We are twenty of us." replied Nayhanimis;
"And so are we." rejoined the others.
Now they here entered into an arrangement that whoever found Beaver for the future, it should be his own. But to avoid any wrangles, he who found the Beaver should plant a stick or branch upon the lodge as a mark. On their return home, each recounted to his family what he had met with in the course of the day.
"Now," said Nayhanimis addressing his family, "we must take twenty beavers, one for each man of them (meaning the Hairy Breasts) and make a feast. If it turns out that we be able to eat these twenty beaver, and they not, then we shall be superior to them and have the upper hand."
The beaver were cooked accordingly. He took his rattler which he shook to the tunes of his songs, performed the usual ceremonies, and they ate the whole twenty beavers with ease. Then addressing his family thus said, "These Hairy Breasts are great boasters, but cowards. They are a people of no account. Tomorrow will decide all."
The Hairy Breasts on their return did the same as Nayhanimis and cooked also twenty beavers, thinking that his band did really consist of that number. They ate, but every one was already full and yet more than three quarters of the feast remained. "Give me my rattler," said one of the oldest, "that I sing. It may happen that we find grace."
He sang and shook his rattler, but it would not sound. After frequent repeated trials to no effect, he became vexed and threw it out of doors among the dogs. "This dog of a rattler will not sound in spite of all my endeavours. But hold! Hear how it rattles now that it is out. Go for it one of ye! Perhaps it was owing to some fault in me."
They brought it to him. But [it was] still as before; he threw it out again in a rage. It was no sooner out than it sounded [as] well as before. It was brought in again, but as before, again. Then he threw it out for good, vexed and disappointed to the utmost degree. But his friends were not pleased. They considered this a portentious omen and his behavior foolish, and by no means calculated to reconcile their Deities to them. He comforted them by telling them, "The numbers of the adverse party must be few. Otherwise we had surely been able to eat the whole of this feast. They are few and we shall subdue them."
The next day they all pitched off. Nayhanimis came first to a beaver lodge and marked it. [He] came [to] another and marked that one also. But making a circuit, in which he hung up his bow [and] quiver in a tree at his own height, came round to the same lodges and found that the Hairy Breasts had put marks of their own and thrown his one away. Exasperated he threw theirs away and replaced his. And [he] made another circuit, when he found the Hairy Breasts had replaced their own again. He also remarked that the Hairy Breasts had hung up their bows in the tops of very high trees, trusting to their numbers.