460 COYOTE TALES. 
planning to get a chance to kill and eat him. They selected a place where 
there was tall grass. Coyote hid some placein the grass and when Prairie- 
Chicken came along he jumped at him and tried to scare him, but Prairie- 
Chicken only laughed when he saw Coyote. Then Prairie-Chicken said: 
‘‘Nowit is my time totry tofrighten you.’’ Prairie-Chicken slipped off to 
a place close to a steep bank and hidthere. Coyote walked all through the 
grass, expecting Prairie-Chicken tojump out some place. Prairie-Chicken 
did not appear and Coyote had forgotten all about him and started on his 
way, when suddenly Prairie-Chicken flew up in Coyote’s face. Coyote 
gave a great leap, for he was frightened. He jumped over the steep bank 
and fell to the bottom of the canyon, where he died from his wounds. 
When we see Coyotes at the bottom of steep banks and in canyons we 
know that some one has frightened them and that they have jumped over 
and so met their death through fear. 
137. COYOTE AND PRAIRIE-CHICKEN.’* 
Coyote was going along and he saw Prairie-Chicken sitting on a limb. 
Coyote tried to get Prairie-Chicken to come down from the tree to dance 
with him, but Prairie-Chicken would not come. Then Coyote began to 
sing: 
Prairie-Chicken yonder, sitting on a limb, 
Somebody is going to bewitch you. 
Then Prairie-Chicken sang: 
Who now is going to bewitch me, 
And with what shall I be poisoned? 
Coyote, answering, said: 
The poison-ivy berries will poison you; 
Your mouth will get sore, you will grow large. 
Coyote sang again and said: 
Prairie-Chicken yonder, sitting on a limb, 
Somebody is going to bewitch you. 
Then Prairie-Chicken asked in a song: 
Who now is going to bewitch me, 
And with what shall I be poisoned? 
Told by Young-Bull, a little Skidi boy, eight years of age, who also sang the 
song in the graphophone. His mother, Woman-Newly-Made-Chief, was the daugh- 
ter of Scabby-Bull, a great medicine-man among the Skidi, and who had many 
stories to tell about the different animals. She in turn tells the stories to her son. 
The story is told to the children to teach them that stones, poison-ivy, berries, etc., 
are poisonous for people but not for prairie chickens. 
