Page:Kutenai Tales.djvu/206

Rh hunting. I will change the Deer, and it will not bite you; | but the Deer is wild." |

Now I have told what Coyote did long ago | to the Deer. |

Well, I will tell you about Tree Chief. |

There was Coyote. He heard about a youth. | There was a youth. He thought : "I'll go, | and the youth shall be my friend, because it is said || that he is clever." The name of this youth was Tree Chief. | 6 Coyote started. He went along. He met | a mule. Coyote took him and rode him. Because his legs were lean, | he took moss and stuffed his legs. Then | he had big calves. Tree Chief's tent was on a river. || Coyote came riding along on the mule | opposite (the tent). When 10 Tree Chief's mother saw him, the old woman said: | "Oh, I wish the passer-by would be my son's friend!" | Coyote heard her talking. | He went past. He left his mule and came || to the old woman. He 15 entered, and said to her: "What did you say | when I passed there on the other side?" The old woman saw that | he was a youth. She was pleased with him. She said | to Coyote: "I said this: 'I wish you would be my son's friend.'" | She did not know that it was Coyote. Therefore || she took him to be her son's friend. She 20 knew that | her son was to be a chief. There was Coyote | in his friend's tent. |

After several days he said to his friend: "Let us go to. the town!" | He knew that it was true that || the youth was going to do something. 25 He had heard there in the town | while he was there [he was told] that the chief would give | his daughter to that youth. Therefore he thought | he would make him his friend. He wanted to kill him and take the | chief's daughter for himself. They went along a trail. || The youth did not want to leave his mother's tent. He would never 30 go I to the big town. When Coyote had become his friend, | he took him along. Coyote saw a pit. It was | a trap of Wolf. Coyote thought: "Here | I shall kill my friend." Then they arrived there.

i Literally, "different kind of tree."