Peter never has seen Little Chief, because Little Chief lives high up on a mountain of the Far West among the rocks where Peter would never go, even if he could, but he has heard all about him.  Old Man Coyote told him all about him, and he got the story from his grandfather, who got it from his grandfather, who had one time visited the great mountain where Little Chief’s ever-so-great-grandfather lived in the very place where Little Chief lives now.  Old Man Coyote had chased Peter into the dear Old Briar-patch one cold winter day, and as he peered through the brambles at Peter he noticed that Peter was very thin, very thin indeed.  Old Man Coyote grinned.

“I’m just as well pleased not to have caught you this time, Peter,” said he.  “You wouldn’t make much of a dinner just now.  When I dine I want something more than skin and bones.  It must be that you are having as hard work as I am to get a living these days.”

“I am,” replied Peter.  “With all this snow and ice on the ground, there is nothing to eat but bark and such tender twigs as I can reach, and they are not very filling.  But they’ll keep me alive until better times come, and then perhaps I’ll get fat enough to suit you.”  It was Peter’s turn to grin.

Old Man Coyote grinned back good-naturedly.  “I should think, Peter,” said he, “that when there is so much sweet grass and clover in the summer, you would make some of it into hay and store it away for winter, as Little Chief Hare does.  There’s the thrifty little hay-maker for you!”

“Who is Little Chief, and where did he learn to make hay?” demanded Peter, his ears standing straight up with curiosity.

Old Man Coyote likes to tell a story once in a while, and having nothing else to do just then, he sat down just outside the dear Old Briar-patch and told Peter all about Little Chief and his hay-making.

“Of course,” said he, “Little Chief’s father taught him how to make hay, and his father’s father taught him, and so on way back to the days when the world was young and Old Mother Nature made the first Pika or Coney, whichever you please to call him, and set him free on a great mountain to prove whether he was worthy to live or was so helpless that there was no place for him in the Great World.  Now Mr. Pika, who was promptly called Little Chief, no one remembers now just why, was exactly like Little Chief of today.  He was just about a fourth as big as you, Peter.  In fact, he looked a lot like one of your babies, excepting his legs and his ears.  His legs were short and rather weak, and his ears were short and rounded.  He was very gentle and timid.  He had neither the kind of teeth and claws for fighting nor long legs for running away, and it did seem as if Little Chief’s chances of a long life and a happy one were very slim indeed, especially as it happened that he was set free to shift for himself just at the beginning of the hard times, when the big and strong had begun to hunt the small and weak.