37. The Bison Helper

37. THE BISON HELPER

A man who had two wives went hunting. He killed nothing and saw nothing in the woods, and before he could see any game in the grassy places it would run away. Then he thought, "I will kill them by jumping into the water," but first he thought he would go about setting fires. So he went along setting fire to the pines and finally he set fire to a bison lying down which jumped up all ablaze and set more fires as he ran on.

The bison made a circle of fire as far as the hunter had thought of going, so he jumped into the water and when the flame came toward him he killed deer, turkeys, bear, and other animals as they came down. As he sat doing this his gun would become clogged and he would clean it out, dry it, and then kill more. After he had shot them for some time he said to himself, "I think that will do," and he stopped.

Then he began skinning the animals. He picked out the fat ones and kept them, but he picked out the lean ones and threw them away, taking only their skins. When he got through skinning them he put bear fat into the deerskins, made two canoes, and put these in them. He filled both canoes with the meat and fat, tied them together and drifted down with them.

As he was going along he saw a man and a woman lying asleep on the bank of the river at a certain place and he wanted to play a trick upon them. So he brought the canoes to shore, went up the bank, and lay with the sleeping woman. Then he filled a clay pot with bear fat and laid down some dried deer meat near it, and thought, as he went on, "When they wake up they will sop it up."

While he was going on farther bethought, "I will rest and then start on again," so he landed and went up the bank, but while he was lying there he saw turtles floating near. He wanted to get them, so he made a cord and dived under water. He tied up many of them and, thinking, "I guess that will do," he went up and tied them to a tree on

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the river bank, one bending over the water. He cooked one and when it was done he split it in two and said to himself, "I will eat it when it is cool, and meanwhile lie down on my back and go to sleep."

It was the end of the fourth day ¹ when he awoke, and lots of maggots had come out on him. "The turtles have pulled up the tree near which I put them and it is standing up in the deep water near the other side of the river," he said.

When he reached the place where his people came to get water one of his wives came down with her head dishevelled. He thought, "Whose wife looks like that? I thought it was mine," and when he looked closely he wept. He had been gone so long that she thought, "Something must have killed him," and she dressed herself like a widow. When she wept, he said to her, "You can both come and get what I brought," but she answered, "The other one has married again." "All right," he said, "you take all the things for yourself," and she took them out of the canoe.

Then they took many hides to the store. When they sold them he said to her, "Take that shawl which you have around you off and throw it away." So she took it off and he gave her a new one which she wrapped about herself. Farther on he was buying dry goods and there were tearing noises as they separated off the goods for him. He said, "When I was shooting them it sounded like that."

Footnotes

262:1 So the text, but a longer time seems to be indicated.