"No, no," retorted Manabozho, "why should I want to look at you?"
"Manabozho," said the old wolf, "you must have been looking or you would
not have got hurt."
"No, no," he replied again, "I was not." But he thought to himself, "I
will repay the saucy wolf this mischief."
So the next day, taking up a bone to obtain the marrow, he said to the
wolf:
"Brother, cover your head and do not look at me, for I very much fear a
piece may fly in your eye."
The wolf did so; and Manabozho, taking the large leg-bone of the moose,
first looking to see if the wolf was well covered, hit him a blow with
all his might. The wolf jumped up, cried out, and fell prostrate from
the effects of the blow.
"Why," said he, when he came to a little and was able to sit up, "why
did you strike me so?"
"Strike you?" said Manabozho, with well-feigned surprise. "No; you must
have been looking at me."
"No," answered the wolf, "I say I have not."
But Manabozho insisted, and as the old wolf was no great master of
tricky argument, he was obliged to give it up.
Shortly after this the old wolf suggested to Manabozho that he should go
out and try his luck in hunting by himself.
When he chose to put his mind upon it Manabozho was quite expert, and
this time he succeeded in killing a fine fat moose, which he thought he
would take aside slyly and devour alone, having prepared to tell the old
wolf a pretty story on his return, to account for his failure to bring
anything with him.
He was very hungry, and he sat down to eat; but as he never could go to
work in a straightforward way, he immediately fell into great doubts as
to the proper point at which to begin.
"Well," said he, "I do not know where to commence. At the head? No.
People will laugh, and say--'He ate him backward.'"