336 
With that it went off. He stayed on there. Presently a blackbird 
came and alighted there. 
“Come here!” he said to it. 
It came to him. 
“When in your way you go about delighting the beasts, have you got 
them much used to your presence?” 
“Yes! I even perch on their backs, and sometimes on their heads,” 
it told him. 
“But this white buffalo, do you sometimes see him too from close by?” 
“Yes! Sometimes I settle on his head and on his horns. He does not 
mind,” it told him. 
“Then, take pity on me! Help me! Try secretly to tell my little 
sister there that I am here. Let her try to come somewhere to get water,” 
he told it. 
Then, “Yes, I will tell her,” it said to him. 
Then up it flew and away, and here and there in the buffalo land the 
blackbird would alight. At last it saw the white buffalo sitting, and there 
sat the young woman. It went and alighted near by, pecking about here 
and there with its little beak. At last it perched on the white buffalo’s 
back. Then presently it perched on the buffalo’s horn. The young woman 
kept looking at it, pleased at its drollery, and thinking of it, “Truly, it 
fears nothing!” while it twittered away. Presently it flew up and perched 
on the young woman’s head. She paid no attention to it, merely thinking 
it pleasingly droll. Presently it perched on her shoulder. 
Thus it spoke to her: “Let me not frighten you by my speaking 
to you,” it said to her, holding its head close to her ear; “Your brother 
has come here, and 'Go tell her,’ he has bidden me. He lies there by the 
path where water is fetched; 'Let her try to come for water!’ he says to 
you.” 
“Is it true? Are you speaking true?” she asked it. 
“Yes.” 
Then it flew up. When it flew up, the buffalo awoke. 
To it the woman said, “Now I want to go and drink. I am thirsty,” 
she said to it. 
“Oh, no! Someone else will fetch your drink,” it said to her. 
“No! Wliat I want is to go and drink. I am weary of always sitting 
in one place,” she said to it; “In the end I shall have pains in my legs. 
Let me stretch my legs by walking a bit,” she said to it. 
“Very well. Try to come back soon; and do not go with anyone,” it 
told her, for that buffalo hated any other man to talk to the woman. 
“Yes,” said she, and arose and went off. 
Really, as she came to the lake, “Come here, my little sister!” her big 
brother said to her. 
When she came where he was, “Is no one near?” he asked her. 
“No.” 
“Now, little sister, ii, is that I have come to fetch you,” he said to her, 
as she kissed her big brother. 
So then again he breathed on the lake: halfway across it was ice. 
When he blew on it again, then all the way to the far shore. 
“Now then, little sister, lie down on the ground,” he told her; “We 
shall turn into mice.” 
