“No,” said Kéis, “I want my own skin.”
“It is too bad I can’t get up all this sickness,” said Wéwenkee,[[64]]—he was still rolling the bark ball,— “it has soaked into the ground, and in hot weather and in winter it will come out.”
Kéis didn’t say much, for he didn’t want Wéwenkee to see that his teeth were gone.
“The Gletcówas brothers are bad men, but you should have asked them for meat, not tried to steal it,” said Wéwenkee.
“They wanted to kill me.”
“How many teeth have you?” asked Wéwenkee.
“Two.”
“Let me have them for a little while.”
“No, I want them myself; people will always hate me, these teeth will defend me. If I want to kill any one I can do it with my teeth. I can throw medicine at them and kill them. I shall keep poison medicine in the ends of my teeth; I will be as bad as others are.”
“I will always be good, unless somebody makes me mad,” said Wéwenkee. “In later times people will like my skin and want to take it. Maybe they will throw dirt at me so they can hide my face and eyes from them, but they can do me no harm. I will not be a servant to any one; but those who go to the swimming ponds on the mountains, and those who are willing to travel at night, I will like. I will give them my skin, and the earth will give me another.[1] I shall never appear to any one, who is not a doctor.”