When she was nearly exhausted, the fox said, “Grandmother, take off the bandages and see if my legs are healed.”

She did as he requested, but no—­the burns were still fresh.  She danced and danced again.  Now and then, as he grew impatient, she would remove the coverings to observe the effect of the remedies.  At length, towards morning, she looked, and, to be sure, the burns were quite healed.  “But, oh!” cried she, “your legs are as black as a coal!  They were so badly burned that they will never return to their color!”

The poor fox, who, like many another brave, was vain of his legs, fell into a transport of lamentation.

“Oh! my legs!  My pretty red legs!  What shall I do?  The young girls will all despise me.  I shall never dare to show myself among them again!”

He cried and sobbed until his grandmother, fatigued with her exercise, fell asleep.  By this time he had decided upon his plan of revenge.

He rose and stole softly out of his lodge, and, pursuing his way rapidly towards the village of the chief, he turned his face in the direction of the principal lodge and barked.  When the inhabitants heard this sound in the stillness of the night, their hearts trembled.  They knew that it foreboded sorrow and trouble to some one of their number.

A very short time elapsed before the beautiful daughter of the chief fell sick, and she grew rapidly worse and worse, spite of medicines, charms, and dances.  At length she died.  The fox had not intended to bring misfortune on the village in this shape, for he loved the beautiful daughter of the chief, so he kept in his lodge and mourned and fretted for her death.

Preparations were made for a magnificent funeral, but the friends of the deceased were in great perplexity.  “If we bury her in the earth,” said they, “the fox will come and disturb her remains.  He has barked her to death, and he will be glad to come and finish his work of revenge.”

They took counsel together, and determined to hang her body high in a tree as a place of sepulture.  They thought the fox would go groping about in the earth, and not lift up his eyes to the branches above his head.

But the grandmother had been at the funeral, and she returned and told the fox all that had been done.

“Now, my son,” said she, “listen to me.  Do not meddle with the remains of the chief’s daughter.  You have done mischief enough already.  Leave her in peace.”

As soon as the grandmother was asleep at night, the fox rambled forth.  He soon found the place he sought, and came and sat under the tree where the young girl had been placed.  He gazed and gazed at her all the livelong night, and she appeared as beautiful as when in life.  But when the day dawned, and the light enabled him to see more clearly, then he observed that decay was doing its work—­that instead of a beautiful she presented only a loathsome appearance.