Old Man had no moccasins; his were all worn out.  The women gave him some for himself, and also some to take back to give to the men, and he went back to the men’s camp.  When he reached it, word went out that he had returned, and all the men said to each other, “He has got back; Old Man has come again.”  He gave the men the message that the woman had sent, and soon the men started for the woman’s camp to get married.  When they came near it, they went up on a bluff and stood there, looking down on the camp.  Old Man had dressed himself finely, and had put on a trimmed robe painted red, and in his hand held a lance with a bone head on each end.

When the women saw that the men had come they got ready to go and select their husbands.  The chief of the women said, “I am the chief.  I will go first and take the man I like.  The rest wait here.”

The woman chief started up the hill to choose the chief of the men for her husband.  She had been making dried meat, and her hands, arms, and clothing were covered with blood and grease.  She was dirty, and Old Man did not know her.  The woman went up to Old Man to choose him, but he turned his back on her and would not go with her.

She went back to her camp and told the women that she had been refused because her clothes were dirty.  She said, “Now, I am going to put on my nice clothes and choose a man.  All of you can go up and take men, but let no one take that man with the red robe and the double-headed lance.”

After she was nicely dressed the chief woman again went up on the hill.  Now, Old Man knew who she was, and he kept getting in front of her and trying hard to have her take him, but she would not notice him and took another man, the one standing next to Old Man.  Then the other women began to come, and they kept coming up and choosing men, but no one took Old Man, and at last all the men were taken and he was left standing there alone.

This made him so angry that he wanted to do something, and he went down to the woman’s piskun and began to break down its walls, so the chief of the women turned him into a pine-tree.

BOBCAT AND BIRCH TREE

Once Old Man was travelling over the prairie, when he saw far off a fire burning, and as he drew near it he saw many prairie-dogs sitting in a circle around the fire.  There were so many of them that there was no place for any one to sit down.  Old Man stood there behind the circle, and presently he began to cry, and then he said to the prairie-dogs, “Let me, too, sit by that fire.”  The prairie-dogs said, “All right, Old Man, don’t cry; come and sit by the fire.”  They moved aside so as to make a place for him, and Old Man sat down and looked on at what they were doing.

He saw that they were playing a game, and this was the way they did it:  they put one prairie-dog in the fire and covered him up with hot ashes, and then, after he had been there a little while, he would say, “sk, sk,” and they pushed the ashes off him and pulled him out.