This happened long ago.
In those days the people were hungry. No buffalo could be found, no
antelope were seen on the prairie. Grass grew in the trails where
the elk and the deer used to travel. There was not even a rabbit in
the brush. Then the people prayed, "Oh, Napi, help us now or we must
die. The buffalo and the deer are gone. It is useless to kindle the
morning fires; our arrows are useless to us; our knives remain in
their sheaths."
Then Napi set out to find where the game was, and with him went a
young man, the son of a chief. For many days they travelled over the
prairies. They could see no game; roots and berries were their only
food. One day they climbed to the crest of a high ridge, and as they
looked off over the country they saw far away by a stream a lonely
lodge.
"Who can it be?" asked the young man. "Who camps there alone, far
from friends?"
"That," said Napi, "is he who has hidden all the animals from the
people. He has a wife and a little son." Then they went down near to
the lodge and Napi told the young man what to do. Napi changed
himself into a little dog, and he said, "This is I." The young man
changed himself into a root digger and he said, "This is I." Pretty
soon the little boy, who was playing about near the lodge, found the
dog and carried it to his father, saying, "See what a pretty little
dog I have found."
The father said, "That is not a dog; throw it away!" The little boy
cried, but his father made him take the dog out of the lodge. Then
the boy found the root digger, and again picking up the dog, he
carried both into the lodge, saying, "Look, mother; see what a
pretty root digger I have found."
"Throw them away," said his father; "throw them both away. That is
not a root digger; that is not a dog."
"I want that root digger," said the woman. "Let our son have the
little dog."
"Let it be so, then," replied the husband; "but remember that if
trouble comes, it is you who have brought it on yourself and on our
son."
Soon after this the woman and her son went off to pick berries, and
when they were out of sight the man went out and killed a buffalo
cow and brought the meat into the lodge and covered it up. He took
the bones and the skin and threw them in the water. When his wife
came back he gave her some of the meat to roast, and while they were
eating, the little boy fed the dog three times, and when he offered
it more the father took the meat away.
In the night, when all were sleeping, Napi and the young man arose
in their right shapes and ate some of the meat.
"You were right," said the young man. "This is surely the person who
has hidden the buffalo."
"Wait," said Napi; and when they had finished eating they changed
themselves again into the root digger and the dog.
Next morning the wife and the little boy went out to dig roots, and
the woman took the root digger with her, while the dog followed the
little boy.
As they travelled along looking for roots, they passed near a cave,
and at its mouth stood a buffalo cow. The dog ran into the cave, and
the root digger, slipping from the woman's hand, followed, gliding
along over the ground like a snake. In this cave were found all the
buffalo and the other game. They began to drive them out, and soon
the prairie was covered with buffalo, antelope, and deer. Never
before were so many seen.
Soon the man came running up, and he said to his wife, "Who is
driving out my animals?" The woman replied, "The dog and the root
digger are in there now."
"Did I not tell you," said her husband, "that those were not what
they looked like. See now the trouble that you have brought upon
us!" He put an arrow on his string and waited for them to come out,
but they were cunning, and when the last animal, a big bull, was
starting out the stick grasped him by the long hair under the neck
and coiled up in it, and the dog held on by the hair underneath
until they were far out on the prairie, when they changed into their
true shapes and drove the buffalo toward the camp.
When the people saw the buffalo coming they led a big band of them
to the piskun, but just as the leaders were about to jump over the
cliff a raven came and flapped its wings in front of them and
croaked, and they turned off and ran down another way. Every time a
herd of buffalo was brought near to the piskun this raven frightened
them away. Then Napi knew that the raven was the person who had kept
the buffalo hidden.
Napi went down to the river and changed himself into a beaver and
lay stretched out on a sandbar, as if dead. The raven was very
hungry and flew down and began to pick at the beaver. Then Napi
caught it by the legs and ran with it to the camp, and all the
chiefs were called together to decide what should be done with the
bird. Some said, "Let us kill it," but Napi said, "No, I will punish
it," and he tied it up over the lodge, right in the smoke hole.
As the days went by the raven grew thin and weak and its eyes were
blinded by the thick smoke, and it cried continually to Napi asking
him to pity it. One day Napi untied the bird and told it to take its
right shape, and then said, "Why have you tried to fool Napi? Look
at me. I cannot die. Look at me. Of all peoples and tribes I am the
chief. I cannot die. I made the mountains; they are standing yet. I
made the prairies and the rocks; you see them yet.
"Go home now to your wife and your child, and when you are hungry
hunt like any one else. If you do not, you shall die."