Note 154 — FICTION (continued 7)

The man above went on until he reached the top of the rocks. At the lodge of the old man, whose name was Hasʻhonyot (i.e., “his back is turned”), of the Odjieqdah154 (Crayfish or Lobster) people, he stood a while, thinking, “this man is at home, I suppose.” Looking down among the rocks, he said, “See where I would fall if he were to kill me.” Peeping into the lodge, he said: “Sure enough, he is at home; he is looking toward me and must have been looking at me ever since I came up. I wonder where that thing is for which I have come. I wonder whether that is it hanging up there. How shall I manage to get inside? Perhaps I would better turn the lodge over and let it fall among the rocks.” He overturned the lodge—down it went over the precipice, whereupon he thought: “What will happen when it strikes? I will go and see. I have overturned the lodge of the most magically powerful person in the world, and did not have much trouble in doing so.” When the man got halfway down he slipped. The farther he fell the faster he went. At last, slipping over the edge of the rocks, he fell till he struck on the topmost limbs of a great hickory tree; the limbs threw him upward, so that he landed on a ledge on the side of the precipice. Not knowing how to get down, he said: “I must die anyhow. I may as well jump.” So jumping off, he came down the same hickory tree, to the branches of which he clung; then he slipped to the ground, where he found his friend’s body with the skull crushed. “I think it was I who killed him by kicking off that round stone,” he said; “well, I could not help it.”