[Original]

[Original]

HERE was once a merry young

Indian who could jump so high, and who played so many pranks, that he came to be known as Grasshopper. He was a tall, handsome fellow, always up to mischief of one kind or another; and though his tricks were sometimes amusing, he carried them much too far, and so in time he came to grief.

Grasshopper owned all the things that an Indian likes most to have. In his lodge were all sorts of pipes and weapons, ermine and other choice furs, deer-skin shirts wrought with porcupine quills, many pairs of beaded moccasins, and more wampum belts than one person could have honestly come by.

The truth is, Grasshopper did not get these things by his skill and courage as a hunter. He got them by shaking pieces of colored bone and wood in a wooden bowl, then throwing them on the ground. That is to say, Grasshopper was a gambler, and such a lucky gambler that he easily won from others, with his game of Bowl and Counters, the things that they had obtained by risking their lives in the hunt.