matTuews ] MYTE: MARVELOUS INCIDENTS OF THE FLIGHT. 401 
in silence listening to them. After a while the rat woman said to him, 
‘You seem to be tired and hungry. Will you have something to eat?” 
and he answered, “ Yes; I am very hungry and would like some food.” 
On hearing this she went into one corner of her dwelling, where were 
many chips and bones and shells of seeds and skins of fruits, and she 
brought him some of these and offered them to him; but at this moment 
the wind god whispered into his ear and warned him not to partake of 
the refuse; so he said to the woman, “ My mother, I can not eat these 
things.” Then she went to another corner of the den, where there was 
another pile of débris ; but again the wind god prompted him and again 
he refused. After this she visited in turn two other piles of trash in 
the corners of her lodge and tried to make him accept it as food, but he 
still rejected it. Now, while he had been sitting in the lodge he had 
not failed to lool around him, and he had observed a long row of wicker 
jars standing at one side. At one end of the row was a black vessel 
and at the other end a white vessel. When she at length asked him, 
* What food is it that you would have, my son?” the wind god whis- 
pered to him, ‘Ask her for that which is in the jars at the end of the 
row,” aud he replied, ‘I will take some food from the black jar and 
some from the white jar.” She removed the stopples from the jars. 
Irom the black vessel she took nuts of the pion and fruit of the yueca 
and from the white vessel she took cherries and cactus fruit, all of which 
he received in the folded corner of his elk robe. He was just about to 
partake of some of the nice fruit when again he heard the low voice of 
the wind god. This time it said, “‘ Hat not the food of the rats in the 
home of the rats, if you would not become a rat; wait till you go out 
to-night.” Much as he longed for the food, after hearing this, he tasted 
it not, but held it in the fold of the elk skin. Late in the day they were 
all astonished by hearing a loud rattling noise at the mouth of the cave, 
and, looking in that direction, saw the end of a big stick, which was 
thrust viciously from time to time into the opening and poked arouné@ 
in different directions; but it was not long enough to reach to the place 
where they sat. “ What is that?” said the woman. ‘Oh,” answered the 
Navajo, ‘that is the Ute, who have trailed me to this hole and hope 
to kill me by poking that stick in here.” The old rat watched from a 
secret place outside all the actions of the Ute, and when he came home 
at night he asked his family if the stick had hurt any of them. ‘“ We 
saw only the end of it,” they replied. He then turned to the Navajo 
and said, ‘‘ Your pursuers have disappeared ; you may go out without 
fear.” 
37. He trudged wearily on all night, and at dawn he was beside the 
high volcanic rocks at Qodtsosi, another place where his captors had 
halted with bim. There is one place where the rocky wall is quite 
smooth. As he was passing this place he heard a voice saying, “Sh!” 
He looked all around him, but saw nothing that could have made the 
sound. He was about to pass on when he again heard the voice, and, 
; 5 ETH 26 

