eds and grass fell flat under his feet. Hardly had they raised their
heads when Iktomi was many paces gone.

Soon he reached the heap of cold ashes. Iktomi halted stiff as if he had
struck an invisible cliff. His black eyes showed a ring of white about
them as he stared at the empty ground. There was no pot of boiled fish!
There was no water-man in sight! "Oh, if only I had shared my food like
a real Dakota, I would not have lost it all! Why did I not know the
muskrat would run through the water? He swims faster than I could ever
run! That is what he has done. He has laughed at me for carrying a
weight on my back while he shot hither like an arrow!"

Crying thus to himself, Iktomi stepped to the water's brink. He stooped
forward with a hand on each bent knee and peeped far into the deep
water.

"There!" he exclaimed, "I see you, my friend, sitting with your ankles
wound around my little pot of fish! My friend, I am hungry. Give me a
bone!"

"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the water-man, the muskrat. The sound did not rise
up out of the lake, for it came down from overhead. With his hands still
on his knees, Iktomi turned his face upward into the great willow tree.
Opening wide his mouth he begged, "My friend, my friend, give me a bone
to gnaw!"

"Ha! ha!" laughed the muskrat, and leaning over the limb he sat upon,
he let fall a small sharp bone which dropped right into Iktomi's throat.
Iktomi almost choked to death before he could get it out. In the tree
the muskrat sat laughing loud. "Next time, say to a visiting friend, 'Be
seated beside me, my friend. Let me share with you my food.'"

IKTOMI AND THE COYOTE

AFAR off upon a large level land, a summer sun was shining bright. Here
and there over the rolling green were tall bunches of coarse gray weeds.
Iktomi in his fringed buckskins walked alone across the prairie with
a black bare head glossy in the sunlight. He walked through the grass
without following any well-worn footpath.

From one large bunch of coarse weeds to another he wound his way about
the great plain. He lifted his foot lightly and placed it gently forward
like a wildcat prowling noiselessly through the thick grass. He stopped
a few steps away from a very large bunch of wild sage. From shoulder to
shoulder he tilted his head. Still farther he bent from side to side,
first low over one hip and then over the other. Far forward he stooped,
stretching his long thin neck like a duck, to see what lay un