Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/516

 1 68 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

White-man was travelling. He caught some rabbits, made a fire, and cooked them. When he had had enough, but there was still much left, the coyote came limping along. He was hungry, and asked for something to eat. White-man refused to give him any- thing. The coyote said he was starving. Then White-man proposed to run him a race for the food. They started off, and the coyote suddenly lost his lameness. He ran far ahead of White-man, came in, and ate all the rabbits before the other came back. 1 Then he went off. Now he felt sleepy from his good meal, and lay down. White-man followed his tracks, and found him. He thought : " If I hit his head, I will spoil it ; " and so on of the different parts of his body. Finally he decided to roast him whole, as then no portion of him would be bruised. So he made a fire. The coyote, only feigning sleep, was ready to escape. He only waited to see what White-man would do. White-man seized him to put him on the fire. But suddenly the coyote was out of his hands, jumped over the fire at one bound, and was off.

XI.

There was a man that could send his eyes out of his head, on the limb of a tree, and call them back again, by saying nacxansts hinni- cistaukvaa (eyes hang upon a branch). White-man saw him doing this, and came to him crying ; he wanted to learn this too. The man taught him, but warned him not to do it more than four times in one day. White-man went off along the river. When he came to the highest tree he could see, he sent his eyes to the top. Then he called them back. He thought he could do this as often as he wished, disregarding the warning. The fifth time his eyes remained fastened to the limb. All day he called, but the eyes began to swell and spoil, and flies gathered on them. White-man grew tired and lay down, facing his eyes, still calling for them, though they never came; and he cried. At night he was half asleep, when a mouse ran over him. He closed his lids that the mice would not see he was blind, and lay still, in order to catch one. At last one sat on his breast. He kept quiet to let it become used to him, and the mouse went on his face, trying to cut his hair for its nest. Then it licked his tears, but let its tail hang in his mouth. He closed it, and caught the mouse. He seized it tightly, and made it guide him, telling him of his misfortune. The mouse said it could see the eyes, and they had swelled to an enormous size. It offered to climb the tree and get them for him, but White-man would not let it 1 Cf. G. B. Grinnell, op. cit. p. 155.