(Ash Meadows, Nevada. Shoshoni)
Wolf's younger brother was Coyote. One day Coyote was hunting on the other side of the hills, east of the Armagosa Desert. Near Manse he saw a man going south and began to follow him. After a while he came to a place where there are rows of rocks which look like white geese resting on fine, white earth. These were Swans who were sitting and smoking. 23
When Coyote came to the Swans, he said, "I want to go with you fellows." The Swans offered him some of their feathers. They put them along his arms and legs, and told him to try them out. They said, "You fly to that little hill. Don't go too far. Go around it once and come back." Coyote agreed to do that. They asked him how he felt. He said, "I feel fine." He flapped his new wings, shouted, and commenced to fly. He flew around the hill twice. This made the Swans very angry; they scolded him when he returned. They smashed his head with a large flat rock, then flew away to the west.
When the Swans were over the mountains to the west, Coyote woke up and said, "Where are those men? There is no one here." He saw only the white rocks on the ground. Then he saw the Swans in the sky over the mountains to the west, and began to follow them.
After this, Coyote decided to go home to his brother. He carried the baby on his back, and went home the way he had come. While he traveled, the baby grew fast. She grew to be a girl, and Coyote wanted to marry her. When Coyote got home he said to Wolf, "This girl is my wife." Wolf, who knew everything, said "Shame on you. That is your daughter, not your wife." Coyote said, "Oh, yes, she is my daughter. I was just fooling." In the morning, Wolf said, "Let us go and kill some fresh meat for the girl." Coyote said, "All right." They went out to a high place in the mountains, where they killed a deer. Wolf said, "You skin it right here. Do it yourself, and don't ask the girl to help You." Coyote said, "All right. Oh, yes, I will do it myself." He Wolf came to Coyote, and said, "Where has the girl gone?" Coyote said, "Oh, she has gone after some wood." Wolf said, I know. You scolded her. You wouldn't let her eat any of her meat. Now she is angry and has gone away and left you." Coyote said, "Yes, that is right, I scolded her." Wolf said, "She has gone way up in the mountains to the north." He told Coyote where she had gone. He said that she had met Mountain Sheep, who was a handsome young man, and he had taken her to live in a cave in the mountains. 272:23 it is not clear whether the rocks were swans, or whether there was a swan opposite each rock. Probably these were geese, not swans.
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