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p. 106

XVI

THE FEATHERED BARBERS

THE Coyote, one summer day, having taken a bath in the river, lay down in the hot sand to dry himself While he was sleeping there, a crowd of Quails came along; and seeing that he was asleep, they said:

"Huh! Here is that foolish Too-wháy-deh. Let us give him a trick!"

So they cut off all his hair, which makes one to be laughed at, and ran away.

When the Coyote woke up he was ashamed, and wished to punish those who had made him pelado; and he ran around to see if he could find the tracks of an enemy. There were only the tracks of the Quails, so he knew they had done it. Very angry, he followed the trail until it went into a large hole. He went all around to see if they had not come out; but there were no other tracks, so he went in. First the hole was big, but then it grew small, and he had to dig. When he had dug a long time, he caught a Quail, and he said:

"Ho, Ch'um-níd-deh! It is you that cut my hair and left me a laughed-at. But I am going to eat you this very now!"

p. 107

"No, friend Too-wháy-deh, it was another who did it. You will find him farther in, with the scissors 1 still in his hand."

So the Coyote let that Quail go, and dug and dug till he caught another. But that one said the same thing; and Too-wháy-deh let him go, and dug after the next one. So it was, until he had let them all go, one by one; and when he came to the very end of the hole, there were no more.

With this, the Coyote was very angry, and ran out of the hole, promising to catch and eat them all. As he came out he met the Cotton-tail, and cried with a fierce face:

"Hear, you Pee-oo-ée-deh! If you don't catch me the Ch'úm-nin that cut my hair, I'll eat you!"

"Oh, I can catch them, friend Coyote," said the Rabbit. "See, here is their trail!"

When they had followed the trail a long way, they saw the birds sitting and laughing under a bush.

"Now you wait here while I go and catch them," said Pee-oo-ée-deh. So the Coyote sat down to rest. As soon as the Rabbit was near them, the Quails flew a little way, and he kept running after them. But as soon as they were over a little hill, he turned aside and ran home, and the Coyote never knew if the Quails were caught or not.


Footnotes

107:1 This indicates that the tale is comparatively modern.


Next: XVII. The Accursed Lake