“Will you show me?” said the Demon, eagerly.
“Why, yes, of course I will; and then we will go hunting together.”
“Good, good!” said the old Demon. “I have a hard time catching deer and antelope.”
“Well, now, you sit down right over there and watch me,” said the Coyote, “and I will show you all about it.”
So he laid his left leg over the rock, and then slyly took an antelope bone and laid it by the side of it. Then he picked up a large stone and struck it as hard as ever he could against the bone. Whack! went the stone, and it split the bone into splinters; and the Coyote pretended that it was the bone of his own leg.
“Aye! Ah! Oh!” exclaimed he. “But then it will get well!” Still crying “Oh! Ah!” he splashed the leg with the medicine-water and rubbed it. “Didn’t I tell you?” said he, “it is all right now.” And then away he went and ran like lightning round and round on the plain below, and rushed back again. “Didn’t I tell you so?” said he.
“Fury! what a runner it makes out of you,” said the old Demon, and his eyes stuck out more than ever. “Let me try it now.”
“Hold on, hold on,” said the Coyote; “I have not half finished yet.”
So he repeated the experiment with his other leg, and made great ado, as if it hurt him more than ever. But, pretending to cure himself with the medicine-water, he ran round and round on the plain below so fast that he fairly left a streak of dust behind him.
“Why, indeed, you are one of the fastest runners I ever saw!” said the Demon, rubbing his eyes.
Then the Coyote repeated the experiment first with his left paw and then with his right; and the last time he ran more swiftly than before.
“Why, do you mean to say that if I do that I can run as fast as you do?” said the Demon.
“Certainly,” replied the Coyote. “But it will hurt you.”
“Ho! who cares for a little hurt?” said the Demon.
“Oh! but it hurts terribly,” said the Coyote, “and I am afraid you won’t have the pluck to go through with it.”
“Do you think I am a baby?” said the old Demon, getting up—“or a woman, that I should be afraid to pound my legs and arms?”
“Well, I only thought I’d tell you how much it hurts,” said the Coyote; “but if you want to try it yourself, why, go ahead. There’s one thing certain: when you make yourself as swift as I am, there’s no deer in all the country that can get away from us two.”
“What shall I do?” said the Demon.
“You just sit right down there, and I’ll show you how,” said the Coyote. So the Demon sat down by the rock.
“There, now, you just lay your leg right over that stone and take the other rock and strike your leg just as hard as you can; and as soon as you have done, bathe it in the medicine-water. Then do just the same way to the other.”
“All right,” said the Demon. So he laid his leg over the rock, and picking up the other stone, brought it down with might and main across his thigh—so hard, indeed, that he crushed the bone into splinters.
“Oh, my! Oh, my! what shall I do?” shouted the Demon.
“Be patient, be patient; it will get well,” said the Coyote, and he splashed it with the medicine-fluid.
Then, picking up the stone again, the Demon hit the other thigh even harder, from pain.
“It will get well, my friend; it will get well,” shouted the Coyote; and he splashed more of the medicine-water on the two wounded legs.
Then the Demon picked up the stone once more, and, laying his left arm across the other stone, pounded that also until it was broken.
“Hold on; let me bathe it for you,” said the Coyote. “Does it hurt? Oh, well, it will get well. Just wait until you have doctored the other arm, and then in a few minutes you will be all right.”
“Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” groaned the Demon. “How in the world can I doctor the other arm, for my left arm is broken?”
“Lay it across the rock, my friend,” said the Coyote, “and I’ll doctor it for you.”
So the Demon did as he was bidden, and the Coyote brought the stone down with might and main against his arm. “Have patience, my friend, have patience,” said he, as he bathed the injured limb with more of the medicine-water. But the Demon only groaned and howled, and rolled over and over in the dust with pain.
“Ha, ha!” laughed the Coyote, as he keeled a somersault over the rocks and ran off over the plain. “How do you feel now, old man?”
“But it hurts! It hurts!” cried the Demon. “I shall never get well; it will kill me!”
“Of course it will,” laughed the Coyote. “That’s just what I wanted it to do, you old fool!”
So the old Demon lay down and died from sheer pain.
Then the Coyote took the Demon’s knife from him, and, cutting open his breast, tore out his heart, windpipe, and all. Then, stealing the war-badge that the Demon had worn, he cut away as fast as ever he could for the home of the Prey-gods. Before noon he neared their house, and, just as he ran up into the plaza in front of it, the youngest sister of the Prey-gods came out to hang up some meat to dry. Now, her brothers had all gone hunting; not one of them was at home.
“I say, wife,” said the Coyote. “Wife! Wife!”
“Humph!” said the girl. “Impertinent scoundrel! I wonder where he is and who he is that has the impudence to call me his wife, when he knows that I have never been married!”
“Wife! Wife!” shouted the Coyote again.
“Away with you, you shameless rascal!”
