"To battle Yaeethl challenged the Thirst Spirit: 'Come forth and meet me, you fatherless son of a shameless mother, littering of a slave's slave.
"'Come with me to the plain below and I will make of thy blood another well, for another of thy family of dogs to guard.'
"Flatteries and arguments, insults and challenges fell into the same echoless hole, bringing to Yaeethl only the laughter of Heenhadowa and increase of thirst.
"Then was the heart of Yaeethl heavy within him, but not so heavy as his face said, for it is not the way of the Raven to eat quickly of discouragement, though he turned and left the well and its guardian like a gambler who has lost his last blanket.
"Not far did he go. Only so far as to be hidden from the eyes of Heenhadowa, where silence might mother the children of his brain. And since the brain of the Raven is full of the seeds of cunning a plan was quickly born.
"Back toward the well flew Yaeethl, but, since he who sees the tail of a lone wolf imagines the whole pack, he alighted at a distance where the eyes of Heenhadowa saw as one sees in a fog. A space the size a man uses for his lodge he cleared of all bushes and weeds, to the smallest blade of grass he cleared it of everything that grew.
"When the space was as the palm of a man's hand the Raven spread his wings until every feather showed and, first bowing low to Hoon-nach, Yunda-haech, Sa-nach, and Deckta-haech,[5] who guard the four corners of the earth, walked slowly around the sides three times, at every third step stopping and making strange motions and stranger sounds, as does an Icht[6] when he would drive the evil spirits away.
[5] North, East, South and West.
[6] Witch Doctor.
"From each corner he took a stone and spat upon it and cast it over his shoulder, and in the dust drew the shapes of animals like unto rolled deer-thongs, animals with two tongues such as no man has seen upon earth.[7]