Trickster and transformer, powerful and vulnerable, Coyote is a complex figure in Indian legend. He was often the ultimate example of how not to be: foolish, proud, self-important. The tales in Old Man Coyote were told by the Crow Indians of present-day southeastern Montana. During long winter evenings by the lodge fire, they enjoyed hearing about the only warrior ever to visit the Bird Country, the Little-people who adopted a lost boy, the two-faced tribe that gambled for keeps, the marriage of Worm-face, and the origin of the buffalo. Wandering through these well-spun tales is the irrepressible Old Man Coyote, sometimes scoring a coup, sometimes getting his comeuppance.

—>Frank Bird Linderman —>was, at one time or another, a trapper, an assayer, a businessman, a newspaper editor, a legislator, and an insurance agent, as well as the author of seven books about Indians, a juvenile having to do with a chipmunk, a volume of verse, and articles in magazines.