his fingers. 'In three days,' he said, 'if the Rains come, the back of
the Hunger is broken. Therefore I will not die for three days. Go, hunt,
Friend and Brother.'

"The sickness must have sharpened Howkawanda's senses, for the next day
the coyote brought him word that the water had come back in the gully
where they threw the buck, which was a sign that rain was falling
somewhere on the high ridges. And the next day he brought word, 'The
tent of the sky is building.' This was the tentlike cloud that would
stretch from peak to peak of the Tamal-Pyweack at the beginning of the
Rainy Season.

"Howkawanda rose up in his bed and called the people. 'Go, hunt! go,
hunt!' he said; 'the deer have come back to Talking Water.' Then he lay
still and heard them, as many as were able, going out joyfully. 'Stay
you here, Friend and Brother,' he said, 'for now I can sleep a little.'

"So the First Father of all the Dogs lay at his master's feet and whined
a little for sympathy while the people hunted for themselves, and the
myriad-footed Rain danced on the dry thatch of the hut and the baked
mesa. Later the creek rose in its withered banks and began to talk to
itself in a new voice, the voice of Raining-on-the-Mountain.

"'Now I shall sleep well, 'said the sick man. So he fell into deeper and
deeper pits of slumber while the rain came down in torrents, the grass
sprouted, and far away Younger Brother could hear the snapping of the
brush as the Horned People came down the mountain.

"It was about the first streak of the next morning that the people waked
in their huts to hear a long, throaty howl from Younger Brother.