296 Field Columbian Museum— Anthropology, Vol. II. 



hear no shooting or loud noises." So he put his head out of the tipi 

 and saw all the small animals, birds and insects hopping and flying 

 about, and he called to his two companions, "The enemies are little 

 animals, birds, and bugs ; come out, and let us kill them all." And the 

 three young men took heavy clubs and kicked them down, killing 

 a great many, and chased the living things off from the camp. When 

 the big people came out and saw what the three young men had done, 

 they were very thankful. • 



The people asked them, "What did you come here for?" When 

 the three young men told them that their people were without meat and 

 that they had come for some buffalo, the big people told them to drive 

 as many as they wanted, and the big people wanted the three young 

 men to stay with them ; for they had killed and driven off the enemy. 

 But the three young men told them that their people were starving 

 and that they were going home with meat for them. The three young 

 men began to drive the buffalo into the hole in the mountain and kept 

 herds after herds of them in the hole, until the three young men thought 

 they had enough, when they started to drive the buffalo through the 

 hole in the mountain. While driving the buffalo through the hole, 

 they lay down four times, as before, and slept and when they reached 

 the end of the hole, the buffalo had all passed out, and there was some- 

 thing asleep at the end of the hole, the head and part of its body re- 

 sembling an alligator, and the other part resembling an otter. 



The three young men gathered a lot of dried buffalo chips and put 

 them under the snake-like thing and built a fire, which burned through 

 it and killed it. When the three young men had passed out of the hole, 

 one of them said, "Let me eat some of it." The other two told him it 

 might not be good food, and that it might be bad medicine and do him 

 harm. But this was a reckless fellow and ate some of it. After they 

 had travelled all day, they were very tired, and during the night, when 

 they were asleep, the one who ate of the monster they had killed, 

 was groaning, as if in great pain, and towards morning called to his 

 two companions that he felt different. He then fell to the ground and 

 when his companions reached him the fur of the otter began to show on 

 his body and it began to grow and his body changed shape, until it 

 changed to a long otter. 



After he had changed to a long otter he told his companions that 

 there was a big lake near by, to which he wanted to go ; and when his 

 companions took him to it he dived under and came up to the surface. 

 He then told his companions that they might go home and tell his 

 people what had happened; that whenever they should go on the 



