Page:Memoirs of the American Folk-Lore Society V.djvu/192

162 good only to cross the river. He lay down beside the log to see where he should divide it, for he had planned to make the vessel a little longer than himself, and he burned the log across at the place selected. All this he did in one day, and then he went home, collecting rats on the way; but he told his niece nothing about the log. He slept that night in the lodge. 469. He went back, next morning, to his log on the banks of the San Juan, and spent the day making the log hollow by means of fire, beginning at the butt end. He succeeded in doing only a part of this work in one day. It took him four days to burn the hole through from one end of the log to the other and to make it wide enough to hold his body. At the end of each day's work he returned to his grandmother's lodge, and got wood-rats and rabbits on his way home.

470. The next day, after the hole was finished, was spent in making and inserting plugs. He moistened a lot of shredded cedar-bark and pounded it between stones so as to make a soft mass. He shoved a large piece of this in at the butt end and rammed it down to the tip end. In burning out the log, he had burned, where the tree branched, four holes which he did not need, and these he filled with plugs of the cedar-bark. He prepared another plug to be rammed into the butt from the inside, after he entered the log, and when this was finished he went home to his grandmother's house, collecting wood-rats from his traps as he went. 471. The next morning his niece cooked several wood-rats and ground for him a good quantity—as much as could be held in two hands—of the seeds of tlo'tsózi (Sporobolus cryptandrus). This meal she put in a bag of wood-rat skins sewed together. Thus provided he went back to his log. He put the provisions into the hole and then proceeded to enter, in person, to see if the log was sound and the hole big enough. He entered, head foremost, and crawled inwards until half of his chest was in the log, when he heard a voice crying, "Wu'hu'hu'hú!"26 and he came out to see who called. He looked in every direction and examined the ground for tracks, but seeing no signs of any intruder he proceeded again to enter the log. This time he got in as far as his waist, when again he heard the cry of "Wu'hu'hu'hú," but louder and nearer than before. Again he came out of the log and looked around farther and more carefully than he did the first time, going in his search to the margin of the river; but he saw no one, found no tracks, and returned to his log. On the next trial he entered as far as his knees, when for the third time the cry sounded, and he crept out once more to find whence it came. He searched farther, longer, and more closely than on either of the previous occasions, but without success, and he went back to