N the days of the ancients, there lived south of Hálona an old Coyote; and over near the headland of rocks, in a crooked, old piñon tree, lived a Locust.

One day the Coyote went out hunting, leaving his large family of children and his old wife at home. It was a fine day and the old Locust crawled out of his home, and along one of the bare branches of the piñon tree, where, hooking his feet firmly into the bark, he began to sing and play his flute.

It was just at this time that the Coyote happened to come along. He heard the little Locust singing at the top of his voice. —  

 "Delight of my senses!" called out the Coyote, squatting down on his haunches, and looking up, with his ears pricked and his mouth grinning. "Delight of my senses! How finely you play your flute!"

"Do you think so?" said the Locust, continuing his song.

"Goodness, yes!" cried the Coyote, as he came nearer. "What a fine song it is! Please teach it to me. I would like to sing it to my old wife, and to my children. I have a great many children."

"All right," said the Locust. "Now listen well." And he sang his song again.

"Delightful!" cried the Coyote. "Now, shall I try?"

"Yes, try," said the old Locust.

Then in a very hoarse voice the Coyote half growled and half sang what the Locust had sung. "That is really very good, don't you think so?" he asked the Locust.

"Well, — fairly," said the little creature.

"Now then, let us sing it together." And while the Locust piped shrilly, the Coyote sang gruffly.

"There now!" he exclaimed. "I am a fine fellow!" And without waiting to say another word, he whisked away toward his home. As he was running along he kept repeating the song to himself, and he thought little of where he was going. Therefore he did not notice an old Gopher peering at him ahead on the trail. Now this old Gopher laid a trap for him in his hole.

The Coyote came trotting along, singing merrily, when suddenly he tumbled heels over head into the Gopher's hole. He sneezed, began to cough and to rub the sand out of his eyes, and then jumping up, he said many wicked things to the old Gopher, who laughed at him far down in one of his cellars.

The Coyote scrambled out of the hole, and tried to recall his song, but found that he had forgotten it.

"You lubber-cheeked, old Gopher!" he cried out. "You have made me forget my lovely song. Well, I will run back and get the old Locust to sing it over again. If he can sit there singing to himself, why can't he sing it to me?" So he ran back as fast as he could. When he arrived at the piñon tree, sure enough, there was the old Locust still sitting and singing.

"O, how lucky that you are here, my friend!" said the Coyote. "A fat-sided, old Gopher dug a hole right in my path; and I went along singing your delightful song, and was so busy with it that I fell headlong into the trap he had set for me. I was so startled that, on my word, I forgot all about the song, and I have come back to ask you to sing it for me again."

"Very well," said the Locust. "Be more careful this time." So he sang the song over.

"Splendid! Surely I'll not forget it this time," cried the Coyote. He whisked about, and away he ran toward his home south of Hálona. "Let's see how it goes. O, yes!" And he commenced to sing.

Now this frightened a flock of Pigeons, and they came fluttering out of the bushes at his very feet, with such a whizzing and whistling that the Coyote nearly tumbled over backwards, he was so scared. And between his fright and his anger at the birds, he was so much shaken up that he again forgot his song.

Now the Locust thought that something of the kind would happen, and he did not like the Coyote very well anyway, so he decided to play him a trick, and teach him a lesson in the minding of his own affairs.

First, catching tight hold of the bark, he swelled himself up and strained until his back split open; then he walked right out of his old skin, and crawling down the tree, found a little rounded quartz stone, which, being light colored and clear, would make his skin look like himself. He took the stone up the tree and carefully placed it in the empty skin. Then he glued the back together with a little pitch, and left the false Locust sticking to the bark. After he had finished he flew away to a neighboring tree.

And during this time the Coyote had met the Pigeons and had again forgotten his song. "I'll just go and get him to sing it over again. The silly old fellow must be still there piping away." And he ran back as fast as his legs would carry him.

"Ah wah!" he panted. "I'm all tired out with this running back and forth. But no matter; I see you are still there, my friend. I had dreadfully bad luck. I nearly stepped on some ugly, gray-backed Pigeons, and they flew up into the air with such a racket that it startled me so — I — forgot the song. Now, my friend, will you not be good enough to sing it once more for me?"

But the Locust said nothing.

"Why, what's the matter? Don't you hear me?" yelled the Coyote, running nearer, and looking closely at the Locust. "I say, I have lost my song, and I want you to sing it for me again. Will you, or will you not?" Then he waited, — but the Locust on the piñon tree said never a word.

"Look here, are you going to sing for me or not?" growled the Coyote, getting angry.

There was no reply of course.

The Coyote stretched out his nose, and wrinkled up his lips, and snarled. "Look here, do you see my teeth? Well, I'll ask you just four times more to sing for me, and if you don't sing then, I'll snap you in two, I tell you. Will — you — sing — for me? Once. Will you sing for me? Twice. Two more times, look out! Will you sing for me? Are you crazy? Do you see my teeth? Only once more. Will — you — sing — for me?"

And the Locust in the tree said nothing at all.

"Ah! Wha!" yelled the Coyote, and he made a quick jump in the air, and snapped the Locust skin off the branch. He bit so hard that the stone broke his teeth, and he rolled in the sand and howled and wriggled with pain. Then he got up and shook his head, and ran away with his tail between his legs.

And the old Locust sat in the other piñon tree and sang his song, and played his flute just for the joy of it, and because the sun was shining.