Hewitt] FICTION 105 



10. The Fox and the Rabbit 



One winter a man was going along quietly over a light, freshly 

 fallen snow. All at once he saw another man coming toward him. 

 The other man when within hailing distance shouted, " I am Ongwe 

 las" (i e., I am a man-eater). The first man decided to run for his 

 life. Starting on a run, he circled round and round, trying to esca^je; 

 but the other man, who was also a swift runner, was gaining on him. 

 AVhen the first man saw that he could not escape, he took off his 

 moccasins and. saying to them, " You run on ahead as fast as you 

 can," he himself lay down and became a dead rabbit, half rotten, and 

 all dirty and black. 



When the second man came up and saw the black, dirty old carcass 

 and the tracks ahead, he ran along after the moccasins. When he 

 caught up with them and saw that only moccasins had been running 

 on ahead of him, he was very angry, thinking, " This fellow has 

 surely fooled me. The next time I will eat the meat anyhow." 



Thereupon the man-eater turned back. As expected, the dead 

 rabbit was gone, and he followed the tracks. He soon came upon a 

 man who sat rolling pieces of bark, making cords. The man-eater 

 asked, " Have you seen a man pass by here ? '' No answer came from 

 the cord-maker. Again he asked and then pushed the cord-maker 

 until the latter fell over ; whereupon he answered, " Yes ; some one 

 passed here just now." The pretended cord-maker had sent his 

 moccasins on again. 



The man-eater hurried on, and the cord-maker, springing up, ran 

 on a little and then turned himself into an old tree with dry limbs. 

 He had made a circuit and came in ahead of the man-eater. When 

 the latter came to the tree, he said, " I believe that he has turned 

 himself into a tree; " so, punching the tree, he broke off a limb that 

 looked like a nose, and that fell like dead wood. Then the uin-eater 

 said, " I do not think that it is he," and started off again on the trail 

 of the moccasins. 



When he overtook the moccasins he thought, "I now believe that 

 the tree was the man, and tiiat he has fooled me again." He hurried 

 back; when he came to the spot where the tree had been it was gone, 

 but where he had broken off' the limb he found blood. Then he knew 

 that the tree was the man he was seeking, and he followed the tracks. 



When the man saw that his enemy was after him again, he fled 

 until he chanced to come upon the body of a dead man, which he 

 pushed on the path. When the man-eater came up, he said, " I will 

 eat him this time; he shall not fool me again. I will finisli him." 

 Then he ate the putrid carcass. The other man thus escaped ids 

 enemy. 



[It is said that the man with the moccasins was a rabbit, while the 

 man-eater was a fox.] 



