“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, shifting nearer. “What a song it is! Pray, teach it to me, so that I can take it home and dance my children to it. I have a large family at home.”
“All right,” said the Locust. “Listen, then.” And he sang his song again:
“_Tchumali, tchumali, shohkoya, Tchumali, tchumali, shohkoya! Yaamii heeshoo taatani tchupatchinte, Shohkoya, Shohkoya!_”
“Delightful!” cried the Coyote. “Now, shall I try?”
Then in a very hoarse voice the Coyote half growled and half sang (making a mistake here and there, to be sure) what the Locust had sung, though there was very little music in his repetition of the performance.
“_Tchu u-mali, tchumali--shohshoh koya, Tchu tchu mali, tchumali shohkoya, Yaa mami he he shoo ta ta tante tchup patchin te, Shohkoya, Shohkoya!_”
“Ha!” laughed he, as he finished; “I have got it, haven’t I?”
“Well, yes,” said the Locust, “fairly well.”
“Now, then, let us sing it over together.”
And while the Locust piped shrilly the Coyote sang gruffly, though much better than at first, the song.
“There, now,” exclaimed he, with a whisk of his tail; “didn’t I tell you?” and without waiting to say another word he whisked away toward his home beyond the headland of rocks. As he was running along the plain he kept repeating the song to himself, so that he would not forget it, casting his eyes into the air, after the manner of men in trying to remember or to say particularly fine things, so that he did not notice an old Gopher peering at him somewhat ahead on the trail; and the old Gopher laid a trap for him in his hole.
The Coyote came trotting along, singing: “_Shohkoya, shohkoya_,” 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 out, cursed the Gopher heartily, and tried to recall his song, but found that he had utterly forgotten it, so startled had he been.
“The lubber-cheeked old Gopher! I wish the pests were all in the Land of Demons!” cried he. “They dig their holes, and nobody can go anywhere in safety. And now I have forgotten my 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? No doubt in the world he is still out there on that piñon branch singing away.” Saying which, 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.