HOW THE LITTLE INDIAN BOYS KILLED THE PRAIRIE DOG AND WHY THEY DIDN'T KILL THE WILD TURKEY

WO little Navajo Indian boys, elated with their su success as mighty hunters, rushed into the ho-gan of their grandfather, the old Medicine Man, to tell him how they had outwitted the prairie dog, and also to tell him that they had flushed up a big gobbler wild turkey who flew over their heads too high for them to reach with their arrows.

The old Medicine Man, who had been a mighty hunter in his day, when the buffalo roamed the plains and could be counted almost in the millions, urged them to tell him everything about their day's sport and how they had succeeded in bringing home the trophy of the chase where so many other of their playmates had failed.

The prairie dog (which isn't a dog at all) is a little animal, with round, fat body and stubby tail, who lives in a hole on the desolate prairies and shares his home willingly with the little prairie hoot owl and sometimes unwillingly with the rattlesnake. He is a great little fellow to pop out of his tunnel house when he hears an

unusual noise, such as a lonely cowboy riding along, and, sitting up on his hind legs, he barks at the stranger in a little, chattering voice, thinking perhaps that he can scare the intruder away, and then, when danger comes, he scoots back into the tunnel away from harm. Sometimes the cowboy tries to shoot the little fellow, but when he comes up to the place where the little dog sat barking at him the little dog has disappeared entirely. The little fellow has such an instinct for getting back under cover that even when shot he succeeds in rolling back into the hole so that the hunter cannot get him.

The little Indian boys, with their bows and arrows which their grandfather had made for them and taught them how to set the arrow, hold the bow and hit the mark, had tried many times to bring one of these little prairie dogs home, but whether they had ever succeeded in hitting him or not, they always found that he had disappeared when they got up to the hole. They thought there must be some way to get him, because they really believed they knew more than a little, fat, barking prairie dog, and so they went day after day to study the habits of the little fellow. Then it occurred to them that there was a way to outwit him. They must not let him drop into the hole when he was shot.

So they hunted around for a long time until they found a thin, flat stone, that would cover the entrance to the prairie dog's home, and then they crawled up to the hole where an old fellow always came out and barked at them, and they put up the stone on one side of the hole so that when it was hit by an arrow it would drop over and stop the entrance, and then they sat down and waited quietly and patiently like all good hunters do.

Presently the old fellow popped his head out of his house and seeing the stone there, popped it back again, but after awhile curiosity got the better of him and out he came again and began. to investigate why it was that the stone was there. He didn't see the little Indian boys that time and so didn't know they were trying to play a trick on him. He was a foolish little prairie dog for being so curious, for the first thing he knew there was a sharp striking sound on the stone, which fell over the hole of his house before he could even bark, and then he felt a stinging pain in his little side and fell over dead. The two little Indian boys were smarter than the foolish prairie dog. One of them agreed to shoot at the stone with his bow and arrow as soon as the prairie dog came out, while the other boy was to shoot at the prairie dog. Both

hit the mark they were striving for, and the old grandfather was very proud that they were such good hunters and promised them that when they were a little older he would teach them how to stalk and kill the wild deer and the elk and the grizzly bear, but they were not old enough now.

Then they asked the old Medicine Man to tell them how to kill the wild turkey, and he told them they should not do so as the wild turkey was sacred to the tribe. He said that they should study all animals and birds so as to know their habits and how to find them and kill them when they were in need of food, but they must not kill the wild turkey. Like the little prairie dog who wanted to know why the stone had been placed at the entrance to his house, the boys wanted to know why the wild turkey must not be killed, and this was the story the grandfather told them:

"My children, many ages ago the Great Spirit told one of his sons that he could come to the earth with his wife and children and that they could hold dominion over all living things, but that they must obey the commandments that he would give them; that everything on earth was pleasant; the streams filled with fish, the woods with birds and fruits and the plains and valleys with animals and corn. So they came

to the earth and were the only people on the earth. Their days were pleasant and they could hunt and fish and eat of the plenty of the earth; but two of the children quarreled and one killed the other. The Great Spirit grieved and then became angry, and told the father he would visit trouble upon him and his children for what he had permitted the children to do; and so he opened the heavens until all the earth, but one of its mountains, was covered with water. As the floods grew the earth man and his children hurried to the high places on the mountain and at last reached its top, which was still above the water, but the waters grew higher and higher until they reached the roots of a hoshkon plant that grew at the very crest of the mountain.

The hoshkon plant throws out leaves shaped like a sword, with sharp edges, and in its center grows a long stalk, and on its stalk grows a fruit which the Indians eat in time of famine. When the plant withers the stalk becomes hollow. As the waters rose the father thought that the only way he could save his children would be to climb up the stalk and if it was hollow they could go down the inside of it and perhaps the waters would not cover it. One of the younger children climbed up the stalk and found it was hollow, and so the father had them all