he food they had brought. So they
went away, and the young man soon stretched himself out on his mat;
but his wife's odd conduct made him anxious, and he lay wake all night,
listening.

When all was still the girl made a fire and boiled some water in a
pot. As soon as it was quite hot she shook in the medicine that she
had brought from home, and then, taking the buffalo's head, she made
incisions with her little knife behind the ear, and close to the temple
where the shot had struck him. Next she applied the horn to the spot and
blew with all her force till, at length, the blood began to move. After
that she spread some of the deer fat out of the calabash over the wound,
which she held in the steam of the hot water. Last of all, she sang in a
low voice a dirge over the Rover of the Plain.

As she chanted the final words the head moved, and the limbs came back.
The buffalo began to feel alive again and shook his horns, and stood
up and stretched himself. Unluckily it was just at this moment that the
husband said to himself:

'I wonder if she is crying still, and what is the matter with her!
Perhaps I had better go and see.' And he got up and, calling her by
name, went out to the shed.

'Go away! I don't want you!' she cried angrily. But it was too late. The
buffalo had fallen to the ground, dead, and with the wound in his head
as before.

The young man who, unlike most of his tribe, was afraid of his wife,
returned to his bed without having seen anything, but wondering very
much what she could be doing all this time. After waiting a few minutes,
she began her task over again, and at the end the buffalo stood on his
feet as before. But just as the girl was rejoicing that her work was
completed, in came the husband once more to see what his wife was doing;
and this time he sat himself down in the hut, and said that he wished to
watch whatever was going on. Then the girl took up the pitcher and all
her other things and left the shed, trying for the third time to bring
the buffalo back to life.

She was too late; the dawn was already breaking, and the head fell to
the ground, dead and corrupt as it was before.

The girl entered the hut, where her husband and his mother were getting
ready to go out.

'I want to go down to the lake, and bathe,' said she.

'But you could never walk so far,' answered they. 'You are so tired, as
it is, that you can hardly stand!'

However, in spite of their warnings, the girl left th