In those days the people had built a great piskun with high, strong walls.  No buffalo could jump over it; not even if a great crowd of them ran against it, could they push it down.

The young men kept going out, as they always did, to try to bring the buffalo to the edge of the cliff, but somehow they would not jump over into the piskun.  When they had come almost to the edge, they would turn off to one side or the other and run down the sloping hills and away over the prairie.  So the people could get no food, and they began to be hungry, and at last to starve.

Early one morning a young woman, the daughter of a brave man, was going from her lodge down to the stream to get water, and as she went along she saw a herd of buffalo feeding on the prairie, close to the edge of the cliff above the great piskun.

“Oh,” she called out, “if you will only jump off into the piskun I will marry one of you.”  She did not mean this, but said it just in fun, and as soon as she had said it, she wondered greatly when she saw the buffalo come jumping over the edge, falling down the cliff.

A moment later a big bull jumped high over the wall of the piskun and came toward her, and now truly she was frightened.

“Come,” he said, taking hold of her arm.

“No, no,” she answered, trying to pull herself away.

“But you said if the buffalo would only jump over, you would marry one of them.  Look, the piskun is full.”

She did not answer, and without saying anything more he led her up over the bluff and out on the prairie.

After the people had finished killing the buffalo and cutting up the meat, they missed this young woman.  No one knew where she had gone, and her relations were frightened and very sad because they could not find her.  So her father took his bow and quiver and put them on his back and said, “I will go and find her”; and he climbed the bluff and set out over the prairie.

He travelled some distance, but saw nothing of his daughter.  The sun was hot, and at length he came to a buffalo wallow in which some water was standing, and drank and sat down to rest.  A little way off on the prairie he saw a herd of buffalo.  As the man sat there by the wallow, trying to think what he might do to find his daughter, a magpie came up and alighted on the ground near him.  The man spoke to it, saying, “M[)a]m-[=i]-[)a]t’s[=i]-k[)i]m[)i]—­Magpie—­you are a beautiful bird; help me, for I am very unhappy.  As you travel about over the prairie, look everywhere, and if you see my daughter say to her, ‘Your father is waiting by the wallow.’”

Soon the magpie flew away, and as he passed near the herd of buffalo he saw the young woman there, and alighting on the ground near her, he began to pick at things, turning his head this way and that, and seeming to look for food.  When he was close to the girl he said to her, “Your father is waiting by the wallow.”