_Chilcotin_
Once a man went out with his two dogs to hunt. It was in the autumn
and there was a little snow on the ground. At night he camped.
As he lay on the ground under the trees, Great Bear appeared in the
sky. Then the hunter started on, because he knew it was nearly
morning. When he had gone but a little way, however, his dogs
started a bear.
The bear ran fast and the dogs followed. The man followed both as
rapidly as he could, and soon he came to a man sitting on a log. At
once the hunter knew this was the bear. The man wore a blanket made
of many different kinds of skins.
When the hunter came up, Bear said, “You thought last night I was
slow in coming up, but my trail in the Sky Land is very hard and
rough. Sun has the same trouble. He travels rapidly at first when
the trail is smooth, but in the middle of the day the trail is rough
and he travels more slowly. Then his trail grows easier again, and
he travels more rapidly to the going-down place at the edge of the
earth.”
Great Bear then told the young man to pull out from the blanket
which he wore the skins of whatever animals he wished most to kill.
The man took the skins of marten and fisher. Great Bear told him
whenever he went out to hunt, to put the skin of whatever animal he
wished to kill in his pouch, and then he would easily kill as many
as he wished.
Then Great Bear went back into the Sky Land.