HOW TWO INDIAN BOYS SETTLED A QUARREL
Flying Squirrel and Lightning Bow were two little Indian boys. They lived by Singing River, and they played from sunrise to sunset. They were as happy as the day was long.
In the summer, they fished and swam in Singing River, and they shot their arrows into chipmunk and woodpecker holes. Sometimes they played "Dodging Arrows," a game their mother had taught them when they were very young.
In the winter, they jumped into fleecy snowdrifts and rolled until their little bronze bodies took on a red-raspberry tint. Then they would send their snow-snakes skimming over the hard crust of snow.
Snow-snakes were small rods of wood, polished smooth with resin, oil, or wax. They could be thrown long distances. Long Moose—Lightning Bow and Flying Squirrel's father—could throw a snow-snake a mile and a half, over the crust of the snow. But the snow-snakes he used were eight feet long and tipped with lead.
It was the Moon of Berries. Six times had Flying Squirrel and Lightning Bow seen the Berry Moon hang her horn in the night sky. And not once in all their lives had they quarreled.
One morning, Flying Squirrel and Lightning Bow planned a foot race. Seven times they were to run. Three times, Flying Squirrel had made the goal first. Three times, Lightning Bow had outrun him. The seventh race was claimed by each. No one saw them run, so no one could decide the game. And they fell to quarreling.
