Page:Oregon, her history, her great men, her literature.djvu/53

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Observing some men exposed to the cold, the coyote resolved to get fire for them. The fire was on the summit of a high mountain, where it was so closely guarded by three witches that no one except the coyote thought it could be taken from them. But when the witches were carelessly changing vigils, the sly coyote seized a brand of fire and disappeared. Soon he was pursued, and all but overtaken. Indeed, one witch had the tip of his tail in her grasp, leaving the tip white to this day. At that moment the coyote caught up with the fox, who took the brand and went on. The witch then closely pursued the fox who came up with the wolf in time to pass the fire to him. All the animals were in turn brought in and pursued down to the frog, which took the fire, now a mere coal, and hopped away. The witch soon caught up with him, and grasped the tail; but the frog gave a desperate leap, and escaped, leaving his tail in the witch's hand-so that to this day frogs have no tails. Soon the frog was overtaken again, and would have given up the precious coal of fire, but, for the fact that he spit it out upon a stick of wood, and the wood quickly absorbed it. The witch did not know how to get it out of the wood, but the coyote did. He therefore instructed men to bring forth fire by rubbing sticks together, and from that day mankind has had the use of fire.

A coyote was roving through the Klamath Country, where rabbits were plentiful. But the salmon failed to come up the river that year, hence the people were in want of fish The coyote had learned from some source that monsters called Skookums had built a dam over which the fish could not pass up stream. Because he was a friend of the people and an enemy of the Skookums, he made a vow that "before many days, enough fish would come up the river to give men, women and children, and even the dogs all the food they could eat."