Beaver and started to
play with the Mouse. Of course the Mouse had small hands and was
quicker than the Buffalo--quicker to see the bone. The Buffalo tried
hard for he didn't want the Mouse to be chief but it didn't do him any
good; for the Mouse won in the end.

"It was a fair game and the Mouse was chief under the agreement. He
looked quite small among the rest but he walked right out to the centre
of the council and said:

"'Listen, brothers--what is mine to keep is mine to give away. I am
too small to be your chief and I know it. I am not warlike. I want to
live in peace with my wife and family. I know nothing of war. I get
my living easily. I don't like to have enemies. I am going to give my
right to be chief to the man that OLD-man has made like himself.'

"That settled it. That made the man chief forever, and that is why he
is greater than the animals and the birds. That is why we never kill
the Mice-people.

"You saw the Mice run into the buffalo skull, of course. There is
where they have lived and brought up their families ever since the
night the Mouse beat the Buffalo playing the bone game. Yes--the
Mice-people always make their nests in the heads of the dead
Buffalo-people, ever since that night.

"Our people play the same game, even today. See," and War Eagle took
from his paint sack a small, polished bone. Then he sang just as
OLD-man did so long ago. He let the children try to guess the hand
that held the bone, as the animal-people did that fateful night; but,
like the animals, they always guessed wrong. Laughingly War Eagle said:

"Now go to your beds and come to see me to-morrow night. Ho!"

HOW THE OTTER SKIN BECAME GREAT "MEDICINE"

It was rather late when we left War Eagle's lodge after having learned
why the Indians never kill the Mice-people; and the milky way was white
and plain, dimming the stars with its mist. The children all stopped
to say good night to little Sees-in-the-dark, a brand-new baby sister
of Bluebird's; then they all went to bed.

The next day the boys played at war, just as white boys do; and the
girls played with dolls dressed in buckskin clothes, until it grew
tiresome, when they visited relatives until it came time for us all to
go to their grandfather's lodge. He was smoking when we entered, but
soon laid aside the pipe and said:

"You know that the otter skin is big medicine, no doubt. You have
noticed that our warriors wear it sometimes