Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/521

 Cheyenne Tales. 173

rolling or floating down, shining like looking-glass. She sat on the bank, watching; it came close, then dived under in deep water. A boy about eight years old came out of the river. He was rough and needy-looking, and his eyes were sore. " Grandmother," he said, "why are you sitting here?" She told him why the village had moved and how she had been left behind. He said he would fol- low the tracks which led to where the girls had been taken. She tried to dissuade him, but he was determined. Going back to the camp, they went to the sleeping-places of the lost girls, and he found a mouse trail. He said he was about to set out. The old woman asked him to provide for her, as else she might starve. He told her to make a round tent of willows at the edge of the river Then he asked for a large knife, but the old woman said she had none. He went over the camp-site, looking, and succeeded in finding a hide- scraper. Then he told the old woman to make him bow and arrows, and she did so. Then he told her to say to him : " Two yearling heifers are near you." He shot into the ground, and there was a heifer-buffalo bleeding to death from her mouth. So the old woman butchered and dressed it. The boy told her to await his return, and set out. He followed the trail until it went under water ; he dived in, and came out on the other side of the river. He found a plain path now, and it continued to grow plainer, until it was a hard, level road. He walked fast, making a terrible noise, as if something big was rolling along. A man came to meet the person making this noise. This man it was who had taken the girls, and the path was his trail ; he had a large iron sword. He said " If I had known you were only a little boy, I should not have come out ; but I thought some one great was coming to rescue the girls. I can knock you down with my fist." The boy answered that he could knock him down. The man said : " You cannot be as strong as this large tree," and he hit a tree once with his sword, and it fell over. The boy reached into his pocket and took out a square book, and asked the man if he had so powerful a book. By looking into it one could see all the various kinds of animals, and plants too, all living, and mov- ing. So the man proposed that they should be great friends. The boy agreed, and then he exchanged his book for the sword ; but he insisted on having the sword handed to him first. Then they went toward the man's tent. He was two-faced ; and he walked ahead. The boy wanted to strike him with the sword, but whenever he raised it, the man said, ".Don't hit me with the sword." But when the man looked sideways, the boy cut him in two across the middle. Then he took back his book and threw away the sword. He went on, and again he met a person, like the preceding, and also with a sword. The same happened, except that this man, to show his

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