“It was a long way down to the earth, and I cannot say how many sleeps the older sister fell. But afterwhile she got here, and when she struck the ground she broke wide open, pop!--just like a seed-pod--and a baby boy rolled out on some thick, soft bunch grass that was growing there. I think some buffalo manure made the grass soft and thick in that place, so the baby boy did not get hurt at all.” “That will be _me_!” exclaimed No Water, with an air of gloating triumph. “No, it will be _me_!” challenged Moves Walking, the off-eye glaring, although the rivals were grinning at each other. Clearly, the explosive interruption at this point in the story was a traditional obligation of the co-operative hearer. Eagle Voice raised a conciliating forefinger and smiled benignly upon the two, like a kindly grandfather silencing over-eager children. “It was a good day,” he continued; “and so the baby was just lying there in the bunch of thick soft grass with his thumb in his mouth. And afterwhile there was a magpie who saw something and came to look. This was an old-woman magpie, and she walked around and around the baby, with her head on one side and then on the other, for I think she had never seen anything like this before.” [With cocked heads, the three collaborators curiously examined the baby in the grass for a few moments of silence.] “But a magpie knows everything, and when this one had looked for a while, she said to herself, ‘This is a baby of the two-legged people without wings. It has four legs, but it is not a four-legged because it has no fur, and all four-leggeds have fur.’ Then she said to the baby, ‘You _are_ a fine big baby, and you _are_ a boy too, aren’t you?’ And the baby said, ‘_Goo-oo_,’ like that. And the magpie said, ‘But how are you going to live, for I see your mother lying dead over there?’ Then the baby took his thumb out of his mouth and began to cry. “This made the old-woman magpie feel very sad, and she said, ‘Somebody must come and take care of this baby that has no mother. I cannot, because I have to fly around and talk so much that I could never take care of him. And if I did not fly around, telling people everything, how would they ever know anything?’ “So she flew away; and as she flew around all over the prairie, she kept crying out to the four-leggeds and the wings of the air and those that crawl on their bellies in the grass, and she said, ‘Come quick! Come quick! There is a two-legged baby without a mother! Come quick and help! Come quick and help! There is a baby without a mother!’