Once Old Man was travelling around, when he came to the Sun's lodge, and the
Sun asked him to stay a while. Old Man was very glad to do so.
One day the meat was all gone, and the Sun said, "Kyi!
Old Man, what say you if we go and kill some deer?"
"You speak well," replied Old Man. "I
like deer meat."
The Sun took down a bag and pulled out a beautiful pair
of leggings. They were embroidered with porcupine quills and bright feathers.
"These," said the Sun, "are my hunting leggings. They are great
medicine. All I have to do is to put them on and walk around a patch of brush,
when the leggings set it on fire and drive the deer out so that I can shoot
them."
"Hai-yah!" exclaimed Old Man. "How
wonderful!" He made up his mind he would have those leggings, if he had to
steal them.
They went out to hunt, and the first patch of brush
they came to, the Sun set on fire with his hunting leggings. A lot of white-tail
deer ran out, and they each shot one.
That night, when they went to bed, the Sun pulled off
his leggings and placed them to one side. Old Man saw where he put them, and in
the middle of the night, when every one was asleep, he stole them and went off.
He traveled a long time, until he had gone far and was very tired, and then,
making a pillow of the leggings, lay down and slept. In the morning, he heard
some one talking. The Sun was saying, "Old Man, why are my leggings under
your head?" He looked around, and saw he was in the Sun's lodge, and
thought he must have wandered around and got lost, and returned there. Again the
Sun spoke and said, "What are you doing with my leggings?"
"Oh," replied Old Man, "I couldn't find anything for a pillow, so
I just put these under my head."
Night came again, and again Old Man stole the leggings
and ran off. This time he did not walk at all; he just kept running until pretty
near morning, and then lay down and slept. You see what a fool he was. He did
not know that the whole world is the Sun's lodge. He did not know that, no
matter how far he ran, he could not get out of the Sun's sight. When morning
came, he found himself still in the Sun's lodge. But this time the Sun said:
"Old Man, since you like my leggings so much, I will give them to you. Keep
them." Then Old Man was very glad and went away.
One day his food was all gone, so he put on the
medicine leggings and set fire to a piece of brush. He was just going to kill
some deer that were running out, when he saw that the fire was getting close to
him. He ran away as fast as he could, but the fire gained on him and began to
burn his legs. His leggings were all on fire. He came to a river and jumped in,
and pulled off the leggings as soon as he could. They were burned to pieces.
Perhaps the Sun did this to him because he tried to
steal the leggings.
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