of him. However, on this occasion, he did not answer 'Yes, my friend.' He realized that Iktomi's flattering tongue had made him foolish.
He turned up his nose at Iktomi, now almost out of sight, as much as to say: 'Oh, no, Ikto; I do not hear your words!' Soon there came a murmur of voices. The sound of laughter grew louder and louder. All of a sudden it became hushed. Old Iktomi led his young Iktomi brood to the place where he had left the turtle, but it was vacant. Nowhere was there any sign of Patkasa or the deer. Then the babes did howl!
'Be still!' said father Iktomi to his children. 'I know where Patkasa lives. Follow me. I shall take you to the turtle's dwelling.' He ran along a narrow footpath toward the creek near by. Close upon his heels came his children with tear-streaked faces.
'There!' said Iktomi in a loud whisper as he gathered his little ones on the bank. 'There is Patkasa broiling venison! There is his teepee, and the savory fire is in his front yard!'
The young Iktomis stretched their necks and rolled their round black eyes like newly hatched birds. They peered into the water.
'Now, I will cool Patkasa's fire. I shall bring you the broiled venison. Watch closely. When you see the black coals rise to the surface of the water, clap your hands and shout aloud, for soon after that sign I shall return to you with some tender meat.'
Thus saying Iktomi plunged into the creek. Splash! splash! the water leaped upward into spray. Scarcely had it become leveled and smooth than there bubbled up many black spots. The creek was seething with the dancing of round black things.
'The cooled fire! The coals!' laughed the brood of Iktomis. Clapping together their little hands, they chased one another along the edge of the creek. They shouted and hooted with great glee.
'Ahas!' said a gruff voice across the water. It was Patkasa. In a large willow tree leaning far over the water he sat upon a large limb. On the very same branch was a bright burning fire over which Patkasa broiled the venison. By this time the water was calm again. No more danced those black spots on its surface, for they were the toes of old Iktomi. He was drowned.
The Iktomi children hurried away from the creek, crying and calling for their water-dead father.
DANCE IN A BUFFALO SKULL
IT was night upon the prairie. Overhead the stars were twinkling bright their red and yellow lights. The moon was young. A silvery thread among the stars, it soon drifted low beneath the horizon.
Upon the ground the land was pitchy black. There are night people on the plain who love the dark. Amid the black level land they meet to frolic under the stars. Then when their sharp ears hear any strange footfalls nigh they scamper away into the deep shadows of night. There they are safely hid from all dangers, they think.
Thus it was that one very black night, afar off from the edge of the level land, out of the wooded river bottom glided forth two balls of fire. They came farther and farther into the level land. They grew larger and brighter. The dark hid the body of the creature with those fiery eyes. They came on and on, just over the tops of the prairie grass. It might have been a wildcat prowling low on soft, stealthy feet. Slowly but surely the terrible eyes drew nearer and nearer to the heart of the level land.
There in a huge old buffalo skull was a gay feast and dance! Tiny little field mice were singing and dancing in a circle to the boom-boom of a wee, wee drum. They were laughing and talking among themselves while their chosen singers sang loud a merry tune.
They built a small open fire within the center of their queer dance house. The light streamed out of the buffalo skull through all the curious sockets and holes.
A light on the plain in the middle of the night was an unusual thing. But so merry were the mice they did not hear the 'king, king' of sleepy birds, disturbed by the unaccustomed fire.
A pack of wolves, fearing to come nigh this night fire, stood together a little distance away, and, turning their pointed noses to the stars, howled and yelped most dismally. Even the cry of the wolves was unheeded by the mice within the lighted buffalo skull.
They were feasting and dancing; they were singing and laughing - those funny little furry fellows.
All the while across the dark from out the low river bottom came that pair of fiery eyes.
Now closer and more swift, now fiercer and glaring, the eyes moved toward the buffalo skull. All unconscious of those fearful eyes, the happy mice nibbled at dried roots and venison. The singers had started another song. The drummers beat the time, turning their heads from side to side in rhythm. In a ring around the fire hopped the mice, each bouncing hard on his two hind feet. Some carried their tails over their arms, while others trailed them proudly along.
Ah, very near are those round yellow eyes! Very low to the ground they seem to creep - creep toward the buffalo skull. All of a sudden they slide into the eye- sockets of the old skull.
'Spirit of the buffalo!' squeaked a frightened mouse as he jumped out from a hole in the back part of the skull.
'A cat! a cat!' cried other mice as they scrambled out of holes both large and snug. Noiseless they ran away into the dark.
THE TOAD AND THE BOY
THE water-fowls were flying over the marshy lakes. It was now the hunting season. Indian men, with bows and arrows, were wading waist deep amid the wild rice. Near by, within their wigwams, the wives were roasting wild duck and making down pillows.
In the largest teepee sat a young mother wrapping red porcupine quills about the long fringes of a buckskin cushion. Beside her lay a black-eyed baby boy cooing and laughing. Reaching and kicking upward with his tiny hands and feet, he played with the dangling strings of his heavy-beaded bonnet hanging empty on a tent pole above him.
At length the mother laid aside her red quills and white sinew-threads. The babe fell fast asleep. Leaning on one hand and softly whispering a little lullaby, she threw a light cover over her baby. It was almost time for the return of her husband.
Remembering there were no willow sticks for the fire, she quickly girdled her blanket tight about her waist, and with a short-handled ax slipped through her belt, she hurried away toward the wooded ravine. She was strong and swung an ax as skillfully as any man. Her loose buckskin dress was made for such freedom. Soon carrying easily a bundle of long willows on her back, with a loop of rope over both her shoulders, she came striding homeward.
Near the entrance way she stooped low, at once shifting the bundle to the right and with both hands lifting the noose from over her head. Having thus dropped the wood to the ground, she disappeared into her teepee. In a moment she came running out again, crying, 'My son! My little son is gone!' Her keen eyes swept east and west and all around her. There was nowhere any sign of the child.
Running with clinched fists to the nearest teepees, she called: 'Has any one seen my baby? He is gone! My little son is gone!'
'Hinnu! Hinnu!' exclaimed the women, rising to their feet and rushing out of their wigwams.
'We have not seen your child! What has happened?' queried the women.
With great tears in her eyes the mother told her story.
'We will search with you,' they said to her as she started off.
They met the returning husbands, who turned about and joined in the hunt for the missing child. Along the shore of the lakes, among the high-grown reeds, they looked in vain. He was nowhere to be found. After many days and nights the search was given up. It was sad, indeed, to hear the mother wailing aloud for her little son.
It was growing late in the autumn. The birds were flying high toward the south. The teepees around the lakes were gone, save one lonely dwelling.
