Page:Memoirs of the American Folk-Lore Society V.djvu/122

100 back he saw her make, as she had done before, two tusks in her lower jaw. When she had made that on the right she said: "He who dreams of losing this tooth (right lower canine) shall lose a child;" and when she made that on the left she said: "He who dreams of losing this tooth (left lower canine) shall lose a parent."

270. When she first began to pull out her teeth, hair began to grow on her hands; as she went on with her mystic work the hair spread up her arms and her legs, leaving only her breasts bare. The young man now crept back to the lodge where his brethren waited and told them what he had seen. "Go back," they said, "and hide again. There is more for you to see."

271. When he got back to his hiding-place the hair had grown over her breasts, and she was covered with a coat of shaggy hair like that of a bear. She continued to move around in the direction of the sun's apparent course, pausing and opening her mouth at the east, the south, the west, and the north as she went. After a while her ears began to wag, her snout grew long, her teeth were heard to gnash, her nails turned into claws. He watched her until dawn, when, fearing he might be discovered, he returned to his lodge and told his brothers all that had happened. They said: "These must be the mysteries that Coyote explained to her the first night."

272. In a moment after the young man had told his story they heard the whistling of a bear, and soon a she-bear rushed past the door of the lodge, cracking the branches as she went. She followed the trail which Coyote had taken the day before and disappeared in the woods.

273. At night she came back groaning. She had been in the fatal canyon all day, fighting the slayers of Coyote, and she had been wounded in many places. Her brothers saw a light in her hut, and from time to time one of their number would go and peep in through an aperture to observe what was happening within. All night she walked around the fire. At intervals she would, by means of her magic, draw arrow-heads out of her body and heal the wounds.

274. Next morning the bear-woman again rushed past the lodge of her brethren, and again went off toward the fatal canyon. At night she returned, as before, groaning and bleeding, and again spent the long night in drawing forth missiles and healing her wounds by means of her magic rites.

275. Thus she continued to do for four days and four nights; but at the end of the fourth day she had conquered all her enemies; she had slain many, and those she had not killed she had dispersed. The swallows flew up into the high cliffs to escape her vengeance; the otters hid themselves in the water; the spiders retreated into holes in the ground,87 and in such places these creatures have been obliged to dwell ever since.