STORIES 391

“No,” said Buck.

“Maybe you know my father, then?”

Again the dour buck answered “‘No.”

“Oh, don’t say that,” Raven replied. “We are of the same family.
Let us go together and sing of our ancestors.”

Buck agreed, and the two set off to a place Raven suggested, at the
edge of a precipice; here they both sat down, Buck on the brink, Raven
a little farther back. Raven sang first, but instead of referring to his
ancestors, sang of the ugliness of Buck. This made Buck angry, so he
sang of how ugly he thought Raven to be. Whereupon Raven shoved
him over the brink of the precipice to his death.

Raven flew down to his dead quarry, croaking happily. Buck was
lying with his rump uppermost, and Raven began to peck at the meat
through thisvent. Nearby was standinga broken stump, of whom Raven
spoke in derision.

“Pll bet that man® wants my food pretty badly.”

Stump said nothing, but fell down and covered the dead deer.

Raven, utterly nonplussed, tried very hard to persuade Stump to
move, but without avail. Thus he lost his meal.

RAVEN AND BUCK
(Third Version)

Not long after the first people had reached this earth, Raven met
Buck.

“Let us go together to some quiet spot,” he said, “where I shall sing
of your ancestors and you of mine, who they were and so forth. I know
a good place on that mountain over there.”

Buck was at first unwilling, but at length consented to follow Raven
to the brink of a canyon where the two sat down. Then Raven said:

“Go ahead, you sing first.”

“No,” replied Buck, “‘you first, I have no fit story.”

So Raven began to sing: “Buck is an ugly fellow. His legs are skinny
and he has a long nose.”

This made Buck very angry. When his turn came he retaliated by
singing of Raven’s ugly feet and beak. Then Raven shoved his comrade
over the edge of the cliff, and the fall killed him.

Raven flew down, croaking happily, and began to feast on the grease
which he pecked from Buck’s intestinal tract, some of which he carried
away to a hiding-place of his own. In his joy he could not refrain from
mocking a near-by stump.

®He called him Qomogqmai-s, which means “Stump” in Raven language.