he had got to a safe distance, and then he sat down and looked up. Presently he thought he would return and eat some of the meat from the ribs.
“Wait!” cried the old Turtle, “don’t go near that meat; leave it alone for your parents and brothers and sisters. Really, I am so old and stiff that it took me a long time to get out to the end of that limb, and I am afraid they went to sleep while I was getting there, for see how still they lie.”
“By my ancestors!” exclaimed the Coyote, looking at them; “that is so.”
“Why don’t you come up here and have a feast with me,” said the Turtle, “and leave that meat alone for your brothers and sisters and your old ones?”
“How can I get up there?” whined the Coyote, crawling nearer to the tree.
“Simply reach up until you get your paw over one of the branches, and then haul yourself up,” replied the Turtle.
The little Coyote stretched and jumped, and, though he sometimes succeeded in getting his paw over the branch, he fell back, flop! every time. And then he would yelp and sing out as though every bone in his body was broken.
“Never mind! never mind!” cried the Turtle. “I’ll come down and help you.” So he crawled down the tree, and, reaching over, grabbed the little Coyote by the topknot, and by much struggling he was able to climb up. When they got to the top of the tree the Turtle said: “There, now, help yourself.”
The little Coyote fell to and filled himself so full that he was as round as a plum and elastic as a cranberry. Then he looked about and licked his chops and tried to breathe, but couldn’t more than half, and said: “Oh, my! if I don’t get some water I’ll choke!”
“My friend,” said the Turtle, “do you see that drop of water gleaming in the sun at the end of that branch of this pine tree?” (It was really pitch.) “Now, I have lived in the tops of trees so much that I know where to go. Trees have springs. Look at that.”
The Coyote looked and was convinced.
“Walk out, now, to the end of the branch, or until you come to one of those drops of water, then take it in your mouth and suck, and all the water you want will flow out.”
The little Coyote started. He trembled and was unsteady on his legs, but managed to get halfway. “Is it here?” he called, turning round and looking back.
“No, a little farther,” said the Turtle.
So he cautiously stepped a little farther. The branch was swaying dreadfully. He turned his head, and just as he was saying, “Is it here?” he lost his balance and fell plump to the ground, striking so hard on the tough earth that he was instantly killed.
“There, you wretched beast!” said the old Turtle with a sigh of relief and satisfaction. “Ingenuity enabled me to kill a deer. Ingenuity enabled me to retain the deer.”
It must not be forgotten that one of the little Coyotes ran away. He had numerous descendants, and ever since that time they have been characterized by pimples all over their faces where the mustaches grow out, and little blotches inside of their lips, such as you see inside the lips of dogs.
Thus shortens my story.
The Coyote and the Locust
In the days of the ancients, there lived south of Zuni, beyond the headland of rocks, at a place called Suski-ashokton (“Rock Hollow of the Coyotes”), an old Coyote. And this side of the headland of rocks, in the bank of a steep arroyo, lived an old Locust, near where stood a piñon tree, crooked and so bereft of needles that it was sunny.
One day the Coyote went out hunting, leaving his large family of children and his old wife at home. It was a fine day and the sun was shining brightly, and the old Locust crawled out of his home in the loam of the arroyo and ascended to one of the bare branches of the piñon tree, where, hooking his feet firmly into the bark, he began to sing and play his flute. The Coyote in his wanderings came along just as he began to sing these words:
“Tchumali, tchumali, shohkoya,
Tchumali, tchumali, shohkoya!
Yaamii heeshoo taatani tchupatchinte,
Shohkoya,
Shohkoya!”
Locust, locust, playing a flute,
Locust, locust, playing a flute!
Away up above on the pine-tree bough, closely clinging,
Playing a flute,
Playing a flute!
“Delight of my senses!” called out the Coyote, squatting down on his haunches, and looking up, with his ears pricked and his mouth grinning; “Delight of my senses, how finely you play your flute!”
“Do you think so?” said the Locust, continuing his song.
“Goodness, yes!” cried the Coyote, shifting nearer. “What a song it is! Pray, teach it to me, so that I can take it home and dance my children to it. I have a large family at home.”
“All right,” said the Locust. “Listen, then.” And he sang his song again:
“Tchumali, tchumali, shohkoya,
Tchumali, tchumali, shohkoya!
Yaamii heeshoo taatani tchupatchinte,
Shohkoya,
Shohkoya!”
“Delightful!” cried the Coyote. “Now, shall I try?”
“Yes, try.”
Then in a very hoarse voice the Coyote half growled and half sang (making a mistake here and there, to be sure) what the Locust had sung, though there was very little music in his repetition of the performance.
“Tchu u-mali, tchumali—shohshoh koya,
Tchu tchu mali, tchumali shohkoya,
Yaa mami he he shoo ta ta tante tchup patchin te,
Shohkoya,
Shohkoya!”
“Ha!” laughed he, as he finished; “I have got it, haven’t I?”
“Well, yes,” said the Locust, “fairly well.”
“Now, then, let us sing it over together.”
And while the Locust piped shrilly the Coyote sang gruffly, though much better than at first, the song.
“There, now,” exclaimed he, with a whisk of his tail; “didn’t I tell you?” and without waiting to say another word he whisked away toward his home beyond the headland
