The Dogs, crazy with victory and much glutted, could not contain themselves, but they bow-wowed with delight and yelped and scurried about, cutting circles dusty and wide around their father, the conquering youth. They hurried on so fast that by-and-by it was noticeable that the Beagle Dogs fell in the rear. “By the music of marrowbones!” exclaimed some of the swifter of foot; “we will have to slacken our pace, father.” Said they, addressing the youth: “Our poor brothers, the Short-legs, are evidently getting tired; they are falling far in the rear, and it is not valorous, however great your victory and however strong your desire to proclaim it at home, to leave a worn-out brother lagging behind. The enemy might come unawares and cut off his return and his daylight.” Most reluctantly, therefore, they slackened their pace, and with shouts and yelps encouraged as much as possible the stump-legged Dogs following behind.
Now, on that day in Moki there had been much surprise expressed at the absence of the Dogs, except those which were so young or so old that they could not travel; and the people began to think that some devil or all the wizards in Mokidom had been conjuring their Dogs away from them, when toward evening they heard a distant sound, which was the approaching victors’ demonstration of rejoicing, and clear above all was the song of victory shouted by the lusty youth as he came bringing his scalps along. “Woo, woo, woo!” the Dogs sounded as they came across the valley and approached the foot of the mesa; and when the people looked down and saw the blood and dirt with which every Dog was covered, they knew not what to make of it—whether their Dogs had been enticed away and foully beaten, or whether they had taken after a herd of antelope, perhaps, and vanquished them. But presently they espied in the midst of the motley crowd of Curs the tall lank form of the vagabond youth and heard his lusty song. The youths who had been jilted by the maiden at once had their own ideas. Some of them sneaked away; others ground their teeth and covered their eyes, filled with rage and shame; while the elder-men of the nation, seeing what feats of valor this neglected youth had accomplished, glorified him with answering songs of victory and gathered in solemn council, as if for a most honored and precious guest, to receive him.
So, victorious and successful in all ways, the outcast dog of a youth who went to Zuni and returned the hero of the Moki nation right willingly was accepted by this beauteous maiden as her husband after the ceremonies of initiation and purification had been performed over him.
Ah, well! that was very fine; but all this praise of one who had been despised and abused by themselves, and, more than all, the possession of such a beautiful wife, wrought fierce jealousy in the breasts of the many jilted lovers; making those who had looked askance at one another before, true friends and firm brothers in a single cause—the undoing of this lucky vagabond youth. Nor were they alone in this desire, for behold! copying their lucky sister, all the pretty maidens in Moki declared that they would marry no one who did not show himself at least in some degree heroic, like the youth of the dog-holes who had married their pretty sister. It therefore came about that the whole tribe of Moki, so far as the young men were concerned, became a company of jilted lovers, and all the maidens became confirmed in their resolutions of virgin maidenhood.
The jilted lovers got together one night in a cautious sort of way (for they were all afraid of this hero) and held a council. But the fools didn’t think of the Dogs lying around outside, who heard what they said. They concluded the best way to get even with this youth was to kill him; but how to kill him was the problem, for they were cowards. “We will get up a hunt,” said one; “and make friends with him and ask him to go, paying him all sorts of attention, and ask him to instruct us in the arts of war, the wretch! He will readily join us in our hunting excursion, and some of us will sling a throwing-stick at him and finish the conceited fellow’s days!”
Now, the Dogs scrambled off immediately and informed their friend and brother what was going on.
He said: “All right! I will accept their advances and go with them on the hunt.”
He went off that night to a cave, where he had often sought shelter from the wind when driven out of the town of Walpi, and thus had made acquaintance with those most unerring travellers in crooked places—the Cave-swallows. He went to one of them, an elderly, wise bird, and, addressing him as “Grandfather,” told him what was going on.
“Very well,” said the old bird; “I will help you.” And he made a boomerang for the youth which had the power to fly around bushes and down into gullies; and if well thrown, of course, it could not be dodged by any rabbit, however swift of foot or sly in hiding. Having finished this boomerang, he told the youth to take it and use it freely in hunting. The youth thanked him, and returning to his town passed a peaceful night.
When he appeared the next morning, the others greeted him pleasantly—those who happened to see him—to which greetings he replied with equal cordiality. They were so importunate with the priest-chiefs to be allowed to undertake a grand rabbit-hunt that these fathers of the
