“No, no!” she replied; “not now.  They would chase us and kill us.  Wait till he sleeps again, and I will try to get away,” and, filling the horn with water, she went back.

The bull drank a swallow of the water.  “Ha!” said he, “a person is close by here.”

“No one,” replied the woman; but her heart rose up.

The bull drank a little more, and then he stood up and bellowed, “Bu-u-u! m-m-ah-oo!" Oh, fearful sound!  Up rose the bulls, raised their short tails and shook them, tossed their great heads, and bellowed back.  Then they pawed the dirt, rushed about here and there, and coming to the wallow, found that poor man.  There they trampled him with their great hoofs, hooked him and trampled him again, and soon not even a small piece of his body could be seen.

Then his daughter cried, “Oh! ah!  Ni-nah-ah!  Oh! ah!  Ni-nah-ah!” (My father!  My father!) “Ah!” said her bull husband, “you mourn for your father.  You see now how it is with us.  We have seen our mothers, fathers, many of our relations, hurled over the rocky walls, and killed for food by your people.  But I will pity you.  I will give you one chance.  If you can bring your father to life, you and he can go back to your people.”

Then the woman said to the magpie:  “Pity me.  Help me now; go and seek in the trampled mud; try and find a little piece of my father’s body, and bring it to me.”

The magpie flew to the place.  He looked in every hole, and tore up the mud with his sharp nose.  At last he found something white; he picked the mud from around it, and then pulling hard, he brought out a joint of the backbone, and flew with it back to the woman.

She placed it on the ground, covered it with her robe, and then sang.  Removing the robe, there lay her father’s body as if just dead.  Once more she covered it with the robe and sang, and when she took away the robe, he was breathing, and then he stood up.  The buffalo were surprised; the magpie was glad, and flew round and round, making a great noise.

“We have seen strange things this day,” said her bull husband.  “He whom we trampled to death, even into small pieces, is alive again.  The people’s medicine is very strong.  Now, before you go, we will teach you our dance and our song.  You must not forget them."[1] When the dance was over, the bull said:  “Go now to your home, and do not forget what you have seen.  Teach it to the people.  The medicine shall be a bull’s head and a robe.  All the persons who are to be ‘Bulls’ shall wear them when they dance.”

[Footnote 1:  Here the narrator repeated the song and showed the dance.  As is fitting to the dance of such great beasts, the air is slow and solemn, and the step ponderous and deliberate.]

Great was the joy of the people, when the man returned with his daughter.  He called a council of the chiefs, and told them all that had happened.  Then the chiefs chose certain young men, and this man taught them the dance and song of the bulls, and told them what the medicine should be.  This was the beginning of the I-kun-uh’-kah-tsi.