460. Natĭ′nĕsthani,[201] He Who Teaches Himself, lived, with his relations, near the mountain of Dsĭlnáotĭl. The few people who lived there used to wander continually around the mountain, hence its name, Encircled Mountain. Natĭ′nĕsthani delighted in gambling, but was not successful. He lost at game, not only all his own goods, but all the goods and jewels of his relations, until there was only one article of value left—a necklace consisting of several strings of white beads. His parents and brother lived in one lodge; his grandmother and niece lived in another, a little distance from the first. When the gambler had parted with everything except the necklace, his brother took this to the lodge of his grandmother and gave it to her, saying: “My brother has gambled away everything save this. Should he lose this at game, it is the last thing he will ever lose, for then I shall kill him.”
461. Natĭ′nĕsthani did not spend all his time gambling; sometimes he hunted for wood-rats and rabbits in the mountains. The day the necklace was brought, in returning from his hunt, he came to the house of his grandmother and saw the necklace hanging up there. “Why is this here?” he asked. “It is put here for safe-keeping,” replied his niece. “Your brother values it and has asked us to take care of it. If you lose it in gambling, he has threatened to kill you. I have heard the counsels of the family about you. They are tired of you. If you lose this necklace at play, it is the last thing you will ever lose.” On hearing this he only said to his niece, “I must think what I shall do,” and he lay down to rest.
462. Next morning he rose early, made his breakfast of wood-rats, and went out to hunt, travelling toward the east. He stopped at one place, set fall-traps for wood-rats, and slept there all night. During the night he pondered on many plans. He thought at first he would go farther east and leave his people forever; but again he thought, “Who will hunt wood-rats for my niece when I am gone?” and he went back to her lodge and gave her all the little animals he had killed.
463. In the morning he breakfasted again on wood-rats, and said to himself: “I shall go to-day to the south and never return.” Such was his intention as he went on his way. He travelled to the south, and spent the night out again; but in the morning he changed his mind, and came back to his niece with wood-rats and rabbits and the seeds of wild plants that he had gathered. The women cooked some of the wood-rats for his supper that night. When he lay down he thought of his brother’s threats, and made plans again for running away. He had not touched the beads, though he longed to take them.
464. Next morning he went to the west, hunted there all day, and camped out at night as before; but again he could not make up his mind to leave his people, though he thought much about it; so he returned to his niece with such food as he had been able to get for her, and slept in the lodge that night.
465. On the following day he went to the north and hunted. He slept little at night while camping out, for his mind was filled with sad thoughts. “My brother disowns me,” he said to himself. “My parents refuse me shelter. My niece, whom I love most, barely looks at me. I shall never go back again.” Yet, for all these words, when morning came he returned to the lodge.[19]
466. By this time he was very poor, and so were his grandmother and niece. His sandals, made of grass and yucca-fibre, were worn through, and the blanket made of yucca-fibre and cedar-bark, which covered his back, was ragged.[177] But the people in the other lodge were better off. They gave the grandmother and niece food at times; but always watched these closely when they came for food, lest they should carry off something to give the gambler. “Let him live,” said his parents, “on wood-rats and rabbits as well as he can.”
467. The night after he returned from his hunt to the north he slept little, but spent the time mostly in thinking and making plans. What these plans were you shall soon know, for the next day he began to carry them out. His thought for his niece was now the only thing that made him care to stay at home.
468. In the morning after this night of thought he asked his niece to roast for him four wood-rats; he tied these together and set out for the San Juan River. When he got to the banks of the river he examined a number of cottonwood trees until he found one that suited him. He burned this down and burned it off square at the base. He kept his fire from burning up the whole trunk by applying mud above the place to be burned. His plan was to make a hollow vessel by which he could go down the San Juan River. It was his own plan. He had never heard of such a thing before. The Navahoes had never anything better than rafts, and these were good only to cross the river. He lay down beside the log to see where he should divide it, for he had planned to make the vessel a little longer than himself, and he burned the log across at the place selected. All this he did in one day, and then he went home, collecting rats on the way; but he told his niece nothing about the log. He slept that night in the lodge.
469. He went back, next morning, to his log on the banks of the San Juan, and spent the day making the log hollow by means of fire, beginning at the butt end. He succeeded in doing only a part of this work in one day. It took him four days to burn the hole through from one end of the log to the other and to make it wide enough to hold his body. At the end of each day’s work he returned to his grandmother’s lodge, and got wood-rats and rabbits on his way home.