i62 Field Columbian Museum — Anthropology, Vol. VIII. 



again, actingin the same manner. All at once a black Spider, that 

 had been informed about the matter by the Wren came up the bluff. 

 The Spider came close to the man, saying to him; "Well, now, you 

 poor one, here you are all alone. " After thus having pitied him, the 

 Spider continued: "Well, just stay here," and left him. But soon 

 she returned, bringing with her two small, fine, downy turkey 

 feathers, and handed them to the young man, saying: "You sleep on 

 one of them and cover yourself with the other, so that you do not get 

 cold during the night." She then began pitying him, saying that it 

 was too bad that his animals (meaning the Eagles) had treated him 

 so badly after he had taken such good care of them. Hereupon she 

 again left him and he spent the night on the bluff. Early in the 

 morning the Wren came again. "So you have come again," the 

 young man said, but the Wren did not answer. It went, however, 

 along the edge of the bluff again to the place where the Spider had 

 come up and when the young man looked there, too, he saw a narrow 

 crack in the bluff, reaching away down to the ground. The Wren 

 at once began to pull out one feather after another from its wings, 

 putting them at short intervals into the wall of the crack, while it 

 was holding itself also on the sides of the crack. When the feathers 

 from the wings were all gone it pulled out the feathers from its tail, 

 thrusting them also into the side of the crack. When the tail feath- 

 ers were all gone it had not yet reached the bottom by far. So it 

 began to pull out the small feathers from all over the body and con- 

 tinued to build its little ladder with these feathers, but the bottom 

 was still not reached, so that finally it had to pull out even the small 

 down all over its body, with which it finished the ladder. It now 

 ascended the bluff again on its improvised ladder, and when it came 

 to the top the young man hardly recognized it. It was entirely 

 naked, having kept only its bill. It now invited the young man to 

 follow it, and climbed down this ladder, assuring him that he would 

 get down safely, and there was no reason for him to be afraid. So 

 they descended and when they had safely reached the ground the 

 Wren told him to wait there for it, whereupon it commenced to ascend 

 again, holding itself to the sides of the crack. As it slowly mounted 

 it pulled off with its bill the feathers from the wall of the crack and 

 replaced them where they had been taken out from its body. When 

 it had reached the top it had all its feathers again and then flew 

 down. Here it told the young man to go towards the place from 

 where it had come, showing him the direction, and then left him. 



The man proceeded as directed, and when he finally stopped at 

 a place he heard a voice saying: "Step back a little, you almost are 



