Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/252

 214 preparation of the paint, by the aid of which he hoped to outwit the eagle. When Funny-boy felt the strain on the basket he let go, as his brother desired, and the eagle bore Benign-face off in it. When it had ascended a little way, it let the basket drop. It repeated this manœuvre several times, intending thereby to kill Benign-face. The latter, when the eagle had dropped him a time or two, put the red paint in one side of his mouth and the white in the other, and the saliva, mixing with and liquifying it, the paint began to flow from the corners of his mouth. The eagle, perceiving this, thought it to be his blood and brains oozing from his mouth, and thinking that he was killed, straightway carried him off to its nest on the mountain to its two young ones. Leaving him thus in the nest, it flew away again. As soon as it was out of sight, Benign-face cut two holes in the basket for his arms, and putting his hands through, he seized an eaglet by the legs in each, and forced them to fly off with him to where his two brothers were awaiting him. Still holding the birds by their legs, he bade his brothers cut the basket from him; and when he was free, he shook the two eaglets so hard that all their bones fell out, leaving the empty skins in his hands. These he made his brothers put on, telling them they would be quite safe in them. He himself then assumed the form of a dog, only where the tail should have been, he stuck a long and sharp double-bladed jade knife; and in the place of the ears he stuck two similar but smaller knives; and where the dog's fore-claws would be, he stuck other still smaller ones. Being thus prepared for the encounters he knew awaited him, he boldly entered the village. Now the animals of this country were different from those elsewhere; they all partook of the nature of dogs, and were employed as such by the people. There were bear-dogs, grizzly-dogs, wolf-dogs, rattlesnake-dogs, and all other kinds of dogs. As soon as Benign-face in his dog form was perceived, some one cried out: "Here's a strange dog, let us have a dog-fight." One of the smaller dogs was turned loose and set on to worry the stranger. But Benign-face ran at it, and ripped it up with his sharp stone ears in a trice. Then another, and another, sprang at him; but he served them all in the same way, and presently there was only the rattlesnake-dog left. This he had to fight in a different manner. Instead of rushing at it, as he had at all the others, he began dancing round it and pawing the ground, as if in play. These antics put the