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.”

THE CAMP OF THE GHOSTS

There was once a man who loved his wife dearly.  After they had been married for a time they had a little boy.  Some time after that the woman grew sick and did not get well.  She was sick for a long time.  The young man loved his wife so much that he did not wish to take a second woman.  The woman grew worse and worse.  Doctoring did not seem to do her any good.  At last she died.

For a few days after this, the man used to take his baby on his back and travel out away from the camp, walking over the hills, crying and mourning.  He felt badly, and he did not know what to do.

After a time he said to the little child, “My little boy, you will have to go and live with your grandmother.  I shall go away and try to find your mother and bring her back.”

He took the baby to his mother’s lodge and asked her to take care of it and left it with her.  Then he started away, not knowing where he was going nor what he should do.

When he left the camp, he travelled toward the Sand Hills.  On the fourth night of his journeying he had a dream.  He dreamed that he went into a little lodge in which was an old woman.  This old woman said to him, “Why are you here, my son?”

The young man replied, “I am mourning day and night, crying all the while.  My little son, who is the only one left me, also mourns.”

“Well,” asked the old woman, “for whom are you mourning?”