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.

Old Man said, "Little brothers, teach me how to do that." The
prairie-dogs told him what to do, and put him in the fire and
covered him up with the ashes, and after a little time he said,
"_sk, sk_," like a prairie-dog, and they pulled him out again.
Then he did it to the prairie-dogs.

At first he put them in one at a time, but there were many of them,
and soon he got tired and said, "I will put you all in at once."
They said, "Very well, Old Man," and all got in the ashes, but just
as Old Man was about to cover them up one of them, a female, said,
"Do not cover me up, for I fear the heat will hurt me." Old Man
said, "Very well; if you do not wish to be covered up, you may sit
over by the fire and watch the rest." Then he covered over all the
others.

At length the prairie-dogs said, "_sk, sk_," but Old Man did not
sweep off the ashes and pull them out of the fire. He let them stay
there and die. The she one that was looking on ran to a hole, and as
she went down in it,