to mark the starting
point. While everybody was admiring the horns the Rabbit said: " I
don't know this part of the country; I want to take a look through
27<) MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ann.19
the bushes where I am to run." They thought that all right, so the
Rabbit went into the thicket, but he was gone so long that at last the
animals suspected he must he up to one of his tricks. They sent a
messenger to look for him, and away in the middle of the thicket he
found the Rabbit gnawing down the hushes and pulling them away
until he had a road cleared nearly to the other side.
The messenger turned around quietly and came back and told the
other animals. When the Rabbit came out at last they accused him of
cheating,but he denied it until they went into the thicket and found
the cleared road. They agreed that such a trickster had no right to
enter the race at all, so they gave the horns to the Deer, who was
admitted to be the best runner, and he has worn them ever since.
They told the Rabbit that as he was so fond of cutting down bushes he
might do that for a living hereafter, and so he does to this day.
27. WHY THE DEER'S TEETH ARE BLUNT
The Rabbit felt sore because the Deer had won the horns (see the
last story), and resolved to get even. One day soon after the race he
stretched a large grapevine across the trail and gnawed it nearly in
two in the middle. Then he went back a piece,