TWO FAST RUNNERS

Once, a long time ago, the antelope and the deer happened to meet on the prairie.  They spoke together, giving each other the news, each telling what he had seen and done.  After they had talked for a time the antelope told the deer how fast he could run, and the deer said that he could run fast too, and before long each began to say that he could run faster than the other.  So they agreed that they would have a race to decide which could run the faster, and on this race they bet their galls.  When they started, the antelope ran ahead of the deer from the very start and won the race and so took the deer’s gall.

But the deer began to grumble and said, “Well, it is true that out here on the prairie you have beaten me, but this is not where I live.  I only come out here once in a while to feed or to cross the prairie when I am going somewhere.  It would be fairer if we had a race in the timber.  That is my home, and there I can run faster than you.  I am sure of it.”

The antelope felt so glad and proud that he had beaten the deer in the race that he was sure that wherever they might run he could beat him, so he said, “All right, I will run you a race in the timber.  I have beaten you out here on the flat and I can beat you there.”  On this race they bet their dew-claws.

They started and ran this race through the thick timber, among the bushes, and over fallen logs, and this time the antelope ran slowly, for he was afraid of hitting himself against the trees or of falling over the logs.  You see, he was not used to this kind of travelling.  So the deer easily beat him and took his dew-claws.

Since that time the deer has had no gall and the antelope no dew-claws.

THE WOLF MAN

A long time ago there was a man who had two wives.  They were not good women; they did not look after their home nor try to keep things comfortable there.  If the man brought in plenty of buffalo cow skins they did not tan them well, and often when he came home at night, hungry and tired after his hunting, he had no food, for these women would be away from the lodge, visiting their relations and having a good time.

The man thought that if he moved away from the big camp and lived alone where there were no other people perhaps he might teach these women to become good; so he moved his lodge far off on the prairie and camped at the foot of a high butte.

Every evening about sundown the man used to climb up to the top of this butte and sit there and look all over the country to see where the buffalo were feeding and whether any enemies were moving about.  On top of the hill there was a buffalo skull, on which he used to sit.

One day one of the women said to the other, “It is very lonely here; we have no one to talk with or to visit.”

“Let us kill our husband,” said the other:  “then we can go back to our relations and have a good time.”