Once Old Man was traveling and, becoming tired, he sat down on a rock to rest. After awhile he started to go on, and because the sun was hot, he threw his robe over the rock, saying, "Here, I give you my robe, because you are poor and let me rest on you. Always keep it."
He had not gone very far when it began to rain, and meeting a coyote he said: "Little brother, run back to that rock, and ask him to lend me his robe. We will cover ourselves with it and keep dry."
So coyote ran back to the rock, but returned without the robe. "Where is the robe?" asked Old Man.
"Sai-yah!!!" replied the coyote. "The rock said you gave him the robe and he is going to keep it."
Then Old Man was very angry, and went back to the rock and jerked the robe off it saying, "I only wanted to borrow this robe until the rain was over, but now that you have acted so mean about it, I will keep it. You don't need a robe anyhow. You have been out in the rain all your life, and it will not hurt you to live so always."
With the coyote he went off into a coulee and sat down. The rain was falling, and they covered themselves with the robe and were very comfortable. Pretty soon they heard a loud noise, and Old Man told the coyote to go up on the hill to see what it was. Soon he came running back saying, "Run! run! The big rock is coming!" And they both ran as fast as they could.
The coyote tried to crawl into a badger hole, but it was too small for him, and before he could get out the rock rolled over him and crushed his hind parts. The Old Man was scared, and as he ran he threw off his robe and what clothes he had so that he might run faster. The rock kept gaining on him all the time.
Not far off there was a band of buffalo bulls and the Old Man cried out to them, saying, "Oh my brothers, help me, help me, stop that rock." The bulls ran and tried to stop the rock but it crushed their heads. Some deer and antelope also tried to help the Old Man, but they too were killed. A lot of rattlesnakes formed themselves into a lariat and tried to catch it, but those at the noose end were all cut into pieces. The rock was now close to the Old Man, so close it began to hit his heels, and he was about to give up when he saw a flock of bull bats circling overhead. "Oh my brothers," he cried out, "help me. I am almost dead." Then the bull bats flew down, one after another against the rock, and at last one hit it fair in the middle and broke it into pieces.
The Old Man was very glad. He went where the there was a nest of bull bats and made the young ones mouths very wide and pinched off their bills. To make them pretty and queer looking. This is the reason they look as they do today.
George Bird Grinnell (1880) as told to him by Double Runner, Blackfoot Lodge Tales, A Story of a Prairie People, (1993) University of Nebraska Press