Oct., 1903. Arapaho Traditions — Dorsey and Kroeber. 9 



it and eat it.'" But the old man said : "'There must be some one who is 

 doing this work for us in order some day to become our son-in-law." 

 He thought that a young man had done it. But the girl was sus- 

 picious because the dead animal had no wounds. She made a hiding 

 place and covered it with willows, and all the next night she watched. 

 Toward morning a large wart (wanou) came rolling along, bringing 

 an elk which it laid by the side of the foot-path. "Well, by this time 

 my food must be getting fat," it said. The girl saw and heard it, and 

 going back, told her parents that it was a strange being that always 

 brought the game.* She went to her father, her mother, and her 

 brother, and kissed them, saying : "My father and mother, we are poor. 

 What shall we do ? A powerful animal brings this game for us without 

 wounding it. Surely it is planning to catch us." They got the elk, 

 cut it up, and hung up the meat, but were much afraid. The girl told 

 her family to prepare their clothes and moccasins for traveling. When 

 night came, she took her mother's old moccasins and placed them under 

 one tent pole, her brother's, her own, and her father's under other poles, 

 also at the edge of the tent. Then they started to flee. The next morn- 

 ing the wart brought a buffalo-cow and laid it down. Meanwhile the 

 four people continued to flee. Next morning the wart brought a 

 buffalo bull, and saw the cow which it had brought the day before still 

 lying there, swollen up. At once it said: "They cannot escape me: 

 I shall surely catch them." Thereupon it swallowed the buffalo cow, 

 and then the bull, and came rolling along covered with dust. It had a 

 mouth as wide as its body. It went straight to the tent, but the people 

 were gone. It swallowed the entire tent and its contents, excepting the 

 four pairs of moccasins which had been hidden, and followed the peo- 

 ple's trail. Just as it had almost come in sight of the fugitives, it 

 heard the old man crying behind it, so it returned to where the old 

 man's moccasins were. It devoured them and went in pursuit again. 

 Then the woman's moccasins, the girl's, and the boy's, in turn all called 

 it back in the same way. At last, as the people fled, the old woman 

 became exhausted and said to her husband : "You and the children go 

 on and save yourselves and leave me." Meanwhile the wart was com- 

 ing on, raising the dust. Then the old man also gave up, and told his 

 children to flee alone, for he and their mother were old and would die 

 soon in any case. The children started to flee, ran back, kissed theiif, 

 parents over and over again, and finally ran on. Then the boy became 

 tired, and told his sister : "Go on ! Ahead of you is timber, and if you 



' As the myth was obtained, she repeats what she has been described as having seen and 

 beard. 



