"With a thrill of triumph, I dropped the precious ostrich skin before their very eyes into the swirling river, where it quickly disappeared from view. A howl of rage went up from the Badamoshis.
"Then I did something I've been sorry for all my life. You know how my people have always insisted on good manners and politeness. Well—I blush to recall it—in the excitement of the moment I stuck out both my tongues at the baffled foe across the river. There was no excuse for it—there never is for deliberate rudeness. But it was only moonlight and I trust the Badamoshis didn't see it.
"Well, though I was safe for the present, my troubles were not over by any means. For some time the Badamoshis now left the ostriches alone and turned their whole attention to hunting me. They badgered my life out. As soon as I had moved from one part of the country to get away from their pestering they'd find out where I was and pursue me there. They laid traps for me; they set pitfalls; they sent the dogs after me. And although I managed for a whole year to keep away from them, the constant strain was very wearing.
"Now, the Badamoshis, like most savage peoples, are very superstitious. And they are terribly afraid—in the way that Too-Too was speaking of last night—of anything they can't understand. Nearly everything they can't understand they think is a devil.
"Well, after I had been hunted and worried for a long time, I thought I would take a leaf out of their own book, so to speak, and play something like the same trick on them as they had tried to play on the ostriches. With this idea in mind, I set about finding some means to disguise myself. One day, passing by a tree, I found a skin of a wild ox spread out by some huntsman to dry. This I decided was just the thing I wanted. I pulled it down and, lowering one of my heads, I laid one pair of my horns flat along my back—like this—and drew the cowhide over myself, so that only one of my heads could be seen.
"It changed my appearance completely. Moving through the long grass, I looked like some ordinary kind of deer. So, disguised in this manner, I sauntered out into an open meadow and grazed around till my precious Badamoshis should appear. Which they very shortly did.
"I saw them—though they didn't know it—creeping about among the trees on the edge of the meadow, trying to get near without scaring me. Now, their method of hunting small deer is this: they get up into a tree and lie along a lower branch, keeping very still. And when the deer passes under the tree they drop down upon his hindquarters and fell him to the ground.
"So presently, picking out the tree where I had seen the chief himself go and hide, I browsed along underneath it, pretending I suspected nothing at all. Then when the chief dropped on what he thought was my hindquarters, I struck upward with my other horns, hidden under the cowhide, and gave him a jab he will remember the rest of his days.
"With a howl of superstitious fright, he called out to his men that he had been stuck by the devil. And they all ran across the country like wildfire and I was never hunted or bothered by them again."