第4章 WHY THE CHIPMUNK'S BACK IS STRIPED(2)

The Person was full of arrows,and he was pulling them from his ugly body.Calmly the Person broke the shafts of the arrows,tossed them aside,and stopped the blood flow with a brush of his hairy hand.His head was large and fierce-looking,and his eyes were small and wicked.His great body was larger than that of a buffalo-bull and covered with scars of many battles.

"OLD-man went to the creek,and with his buffalo-horn cup brought some water to the Person,asking as he approached:

"'Who are you,Person?Tell me,so Ican make you a fine present,for you are great in war.'

"'I am Bad Sickness,'replied the Person.

'Tribes I have met remember me and always will,for their bravest warriors are afraid when Imake war upon them.I come in the night or I visit their camps in daylight.It is always the same;they are frightened and I kill them easily.'

"'Ho!'said OLD-man,'tell me how to make Bad Sickness,for I often go to war myself.'

He lied;for he was never in a battle in his life.

The Person shook his ugly head and then OLD-man said:

"'If you will tell me how to make Bad Sick-ness I will make you small and handsome.

When you are big,as you now are,it is very hard to make a living;but when you are small,little food will make you fat.Your living will be easy because I will make your food grow everywhere.'

"'Good,'said the Person,'I will do it;you must kill the fawns of the deer and the calves of the elk when they first begin to live.

When you have killed enough of them you must make a robe of their skins.Whenever you wear that robe and sing--"now you sicken,now you sicken,"the sickness will come--that is all there is to it.'

"'Good,'said OLD-man,'now lie down to sleep and I will do as I promised.'

"The Person went to sleep and OLD-man breathed upon him until he grew so tiny that he laughed to see how small he had made him.

Then he took out his paint sack and striped the Person's back with black and yellow.It looked bright and handsome and he waked the Person,who was now a tiny animal with a bushy tail to make him pretty.

"'Now,'said OLD-man,'you are the Chip-munk,and must always wear those striped clothes.All of your children and their chil-dren,must wear them,too.'

"After the Chipmunk had looked at him-self,and thanked OLD-man for his new clothes,he wanted to know how he could make his living,and OLD-man told him what to eat,and said he must cache the pine-nuts when the leaves turned yellow,so he would not have to work in the winter time.

"'You are a cousin to the Pine-squirrel,'said OLD-man,'and you will hunt and hide as he does.You will be spry and your living will be easy to make if you do as I have told you.'

"He taught the Chipmunk his language and his signs,showed him where to live,and then left him,going on toward the north again.

He kept looking for the cow-elk and doe-deer,and it was not long before he had killed enough of their young to make the robe as the Person told him,for they were plentiful before the white man came to live on the world.He found a shady place near a creek,and there made the robe that would make Bad Sick-ness whenever he sang the queer song,but the robe was plain,and brown in color.He didn't like the looks of it.Suddenly he thought how nice the back of the Chipmunk looked after he had striped it with his paints.He got out his old paint sack and with the same colors made the robe look very much like the clothes of the Chipmunk.He was proud of the work,and liked the new robe better;but being lazy,he wanted to save himself work,so he sent the South-wind to tell all the doe-deer and the cow-elk to come to him.

They came as soon as they received the mes-sage,for they were afraid of OLD-man and always tried to please him.When they had all reached the place where OLD-man was he said to them:

"'Do you see this robe?'

"'Yes,we see it,'they replied.

"'Well,I have made it from the skins of your children,and then painted it to look like the Chipmunk's back,for I like the looks of that Person's clothes.I shall need many more of these robes during my life;and every time I make one,I don't want to have to spend my time painting it;so from now on and for-ever your children shall be born in spotted clothes.I want it to be that way to save me work.On all the fawns there must be spots of white like this （here he pointed to the spots on Bad Sickness's robe）and on all of the elk-calves the spots shall not be so white and shall be in rows and look rather yellow.'Again he showed them his robe,that they might see just what he wanted.

"'Remember,'he said,'after this I don't want to see any of your children running about wearing plain clothing,because that would mean more painting for me.Now go away,and remember what I have said,lest I make you sick.'

"The cow-elk and the doe-deer were glad to know that their children's clothes would be beautiful,and they went away to their little ones who were hidden in the tall grass,where the wolves and mountain-lions would have a hard time finding them;for you know that in the tracks of the fawn there is no scent,and the wolf cannot trail him when he is alone.

That is the way Manitou takes care of the weak,and all of the forest-people know about it,too.

"Now you know why the Chipmunk's back is striped,and why the fawn and elk-calf wear their pretty clothes.

"I hear the owls,and it is time for all young men who will some day be great warriors to go to bed,and for all young women to seek rest,lest beauty go away forever.Ho!"