Page:Memoirs of the American Folk-Lore Society V.djvu/121

Rh and bushes. When their work was finished they told the Otters what they had done, and the latter started to climb the bluff and attack Coyote. Conscious of his superior swiftness, he acted as if indifferent to them, and allowed them to come quite close before he turned to run; but he did not run far until he was caught in the webs of the Spiders. Then the Otters seized him and dragged him, howling, to the foot of the hill. He clung so hard to the grasses and shrubs as he passed that they were torn out by the roots. When the Otters got him to the bottom of the hill they killed him, or seemed to kill him. The Cliff Swallows (Hastsósi)21 flew down from the walls of the canyon and tore him in pieces; they carried off the fragments to their nests, leaving only a few drops of blood on the ground; they tore his skin into strips and made of these bands which they put around their heads, and this accounts for the band which the cliff swallow wears upon his brow to-day.

267. It was nightfall when the brothers came home. They saw that Coyote had not yet returned, and they marvelled what had become of him. When they entered the lodge and sat down, the sister came and peeped in over the portiere, scanned the inside of the lodge, and looked inquiringly at them. They did not speak to her until she had done this four times, then the eldest brother said: "Go back and sleep, and don't worry about that worthless man of yours. He is not with us, and we know not what has become of him. We suppose he has gone into the canyon, where we warned him not to go, and has been killed." She only said, "What have you done with him?" and went away in anger.

268. Before they lay down to sleep they sent the youngest brother out to hide where he had hidden the night before to watch their sister, and this is what he saw: At first she pretended to go to sleep. After a while she rose and sat facing the east. Then she faced in turn the south, the west, and the north, moving sunwise. When this was done she pulled out her right eye-tooth, broke a large piece from one of her four bone awls and inserted it in the place of the tooth, making a great tusk where the little tooth had once been. As she did this she said aloud: "He who shall here after dream of losing a right eye-tooth shall lose a brother." After this she opened her mouth to the four points of the compass in the order in which she had faced them before, tore out her left eye-tooth and inserted in its place the pointed end of another awl. As she made this tusk she said: "He who dreams of losing his left eye-tooth shall lose a sister."

269. The watcher then returned to his brothers and told them what he had seen and heard. "Go back," said they, "and watch her again, for you have not seen all her deeds." When he went