n.
One of the arrows he painted red, one blue, and another yellow. The rest
he left the natural color of the wood. When he had completed them, the
mother placed them in a fine quiver, all worked in porcupine quills,
and hung them up over where the boy slept in his fine hammock of painted
moose hide.

At times when the mother would be nursing her son, she would look up at
the bow and arrows and talk to her baby, saying: "My son, hurry up and
grow fast so you can use your bow and arrows. You will grow up to be
as fine a marksman as your father." The baby would coo and stretch his
little arms up towards the bright colored quiver as though he understood
every word his mother had uttered. Time passed and the boy grew up to a
good size, when one day his father said: "Wife, give our son the bow and
arrows so that he may learn how to use them." The father taught his son
how to string and unstring the bow, and also how to attach the arrow to
the string. The red, blue and yellow arrows, he told the boy, were to be
used only whenever there was any extra good shooting to be done, so the
boy never used these three until he became a master of the art. Then he
would practice on eagles and hawks, and never an eagle or hawk continued
his flight when the boy shot one of the arrows after him.

One day the boy came running into the tent, exclaiming: "Mother, mother,
I have shot and killed the most beautiful bird I ever saw." "Bring
it in, my son, and let me look at it." He brought the bird and upon
examining it she pronounced it a different type of bird from any she had
ever seen. Its feathers were of variegated colors and on its head was
a topknot of pure white feathers. The father, returning, asked the boy
with which arrow he had killed the bird. "With the red one," answered
the boy. "I was so anxious to secure the pretty bird that, although I
know I could have killed it with one of my common arrows, I wanted to
be certain, so I used the red one." "That is right, my son," said the
father. "When you have the least doubt of your aim, always use one of
the painted arrows, and you will never miss your mark."

The parents decided to give a big feast in honor of their son killing
the strange, beautiful bird. So a great many elderly women were called
to the tent of Pretty Dove to assist her in making ready for the big
feast. For ten days these women cooked and pounded beef and cherries,
and got ready the choicest dishes known to the Indians.