This is one of the stories that Alan had from the Basket Woman after she
came to understand that the boy really loved her tales and believed
them. She would sit by the spring with her hands clasped across her
knees while the clothes boiled and Alan fed the fire with broken brush,
and tell him wonder stories as long as the time allowed, which was never
so long as the boy liked to hear them. The story of the Fire Bringer
gave him the greatest delight, and he made a game of it to play with
little Indian boys from the campoodie who sometimes strayed in the
direction of the homesteader's cabin. It was the story that came
oftenest to his mind when he lay in his bed at night, and saw the stars
in the windy sky shine through the cabin window.
He heard of it so often and thought of it so much that at last it seemed
to him that he had been part of the story himself, but his mother said
he must have dreamed it. The experience came to him in this way: He had
gone with his father to the mountains for a load of wood, a two days'
journey from home, and they had taken their blankets to sleep upon the
ground, which was the first time of Alan's doing so. It was the time of
year when white gilias, which the children call "evening snow," were in
bloom, and their musky scent was mingled with the warm air in the soft
dark all about him.
He heard the camp-fire snap and whisper, and saw the flicker of it
brighten and die on the lower branches of the pines. He looked up and
saw the stars in the deep velvet void, and now and then one fell from
it, trailing all across the sky. Small winds moved in the tops of the
sage and trod lightly in the dark, blossomy grass. Near by them ran a
flooding creek, the sound of it among the stones like low-toned,
cheerful talk. Familiar voices seemed to rise through it and approach
distinctness. The boy lay in his blanket harking to one recurring note,
until quite suddenly it separated itself from the babble and called to
him in the Basket Woman's voice. He was sure it was she who spoke his
name, though he could not see her; and got up on his feet at once. He
knew, too, that he was Alan, and yet it seemed, without seeming strange,
that he was the boy of the story who was afterward to be called the Fire
Bringer. The skin of his body was dark and shining, with straight, black
locks cropped at his shoulders, and he wore no clothing but a scrap of
deerskin belted with a wisp of bark. He ran free on the mesa and
mountain where he would, and carried in his hand a cleft stick that had
a longish rounded stone caught in the cleft and held by strips of skin.
By this he knew he had waked up into the time of which the Basket Woman
had told him, before fire was brought to the tribes, when men and beasts
talked together with understanding, and the Coyote was the Friend and
Counselor of man. They ranged together by wood and open swale, the boy
who was to be called Fire Bringer and the keen, gray dog of the
wilderness, and saw the tribesmen catching fish in the creeks with their
hands and the women digging roots with sharp stones. This they did in
summer and fared well, but when winter came they ran nakedly in the snow
or huddled in caves of the rocks and were very miserable. When the boy
saw this he was very unhappy, and brooded over it until the Coyote
noticed it.
"It is because my people suffer and have no way to escape the cold,"
said the boy.
"I do not feel it," said the Coyote.
"That is because of your coat of good fur, which my people have not,
except they take it in the chase, and it is hard to come by."
"Let them run about, then," said the Counselor, "and keep warm."
"They run till they are weary," said the boy, "and there are the young
children and the very old. Is there no way for them?"
"Come," said the Coyote, "let us go to the hunt."
"I will hunt no more," the boy answered him, "until I have found a way
to save my people from the cold. Help me, O Counselor!"
But the Coyote had run away. After a time he came back and found the boy
still troubled in his mind.
"There is a way, O Man Friend," said the Coyote, "and you and I must
take it together, but it is very hard."
"I will not fail of my part," said the boy.
"We will need a hundred men and women, strong and swift runners."
"I will find them," the boy insisted, "only tell me."
"We must go," said the Coyote, "to the Burning Mountain by the Big Water
and bring fire to your people."