Page:Memoirs of the American Folk-Lore Society V.djvu/119

Rh Tsĭnántlehi! Tsĭnántlehi! Tsĭnántlehi! (Turn to bone! Turn to bone! Turn to bone! Turn to bone!) Each time he cried, the horn grew harder and harder, and the knife slipped as it cut, hacking but not severing the horn. This is why the horns of the Rocky Mountain sheep are now hard, not fleshy, and to this day they bear the marks of the hunter's knife. "Tsĭ´ndi! Tsĭndás bilnáalti!" (You devil! You evil companion in travel!) said the hunter to Coyote.

261. The hunters gathered all the meat into one pile, and by means of the mystic power which they possessed they reduced it to a very small compass. They tied it in a small bundle which one person might easily carry, and they gave it to Coyote to take home, saying to him, "Travel round by the head of the canyon over which we crossed and go not through it, for they are evil people who dwell there, and open not your bundle until you get home."

262. The bundle was lifted to his back and he started for home, promising to heed all that had been told him. But as soon as he was well out of sight of his companions he slipped his bundle to the ground and opened it. At once the meat expanded and became again a heap of formidable size, such that he could not bind it up again or carry it; so he hung some of it up on the trees and bushes; he stuck part of it into crevices in the rocks; a portion he left scattered on the ground; he tied up as much as he could carry in a new bundle, and with this he continued on his journey.

263. When he came to the edge of the forbidden canyon he looked down and saw some birds playing a game he had never witnessed before. They rolled great stones down the slope, which extended from the foot of the cliff to the bottom of the valley, and stood on the stones while they were rolling; yet the birds were not upset or crushed or hurt in the least by this diversion. The sight so pleased Coyote that he descended into the canyon and begged to be allowed to join in the sport. The birds rolled a stone gently for him; he got on it and handled himself so nimbly that he reached the bottom of the slope without injury. Again and again he begged them to give him a trial until he thus three times descended without hurting himself. When he asked the birds for the fourth time to roll a stone for him they became angry and hurled it with such force that Coyote lost his footing, and he and the stone rolled over one another to the bottom of the slope, and he screamed and yelped all the way down.

264. After this experience he left the birds and travelled on until he observed some Otters at play by the stream at the bottom of the canyon. They were playing the Navaho game of nansoz. They bet their skins against one another on the results of the game. But when one lost his skin at play he jumped into the water and came