Then the Coyote considered a long time how he should tell the boy what
fire is. "It is," said he, "red like a flower, yet it is no flower;
neither is it a beast, though it runs in the grass and rages in the wood
and devours all. It is very fierce and hurtful and stays not for asking,
yet if it is kept among stones and fed with small sticks, it will serve
the people well and keep them warm."
"How is it to be come at?"
"It has its lair in the Burning Mountain, and the Fire Spirits guard it
night and day. It is a hundred days' journey from this place, and
because of the jealousy of the Fire Spirits no man dare go near it. But
I, because all beasts are known to fear it much, may approach it without
hurt and, it may be, bring you a brand from the burning. Then you must
have strong runners for every one of the hundred days to bring it safely
home."
"I will go and get them," said the boy; but it was not so easily done as
said. Many there were who were slothful and many were afraid, but the
most disbelieved it wholly, for, they said, "How should this boy tell us
of a thing of which we have never heard!" But at the last the boy and
their own misery persuaded them.
The Coyote advised them how the march should begin. The boy and the
Counselor went foremost, next to them the swiftest runners, with the
others following in the order of their strength and speed. They left the
place of their home and went over the high mountains where great jagged
peaks stand up above the snow, and down the way the streams led through
a long stretch of giant wood where the sombre shade and the sound of the
wind in the branches made them afraid. At nightfall where they rested
one stayed in that place, and the next night another dropped behind, and
so it was at the end of each day's journey. They crossed a great plain
where waters of mirage rolled over a cracked and parching earth and the
rim of the world was hidden in a bluish mist; so they came at last to
another range of hills, not so high but tumbled thickly together, and
beyond these, at the end of the hundred days, to the Big Water quaking
along the sand at the foot of the Burning Mountain.
It stood up in a high and peaked cone, and the smoke of its burning
rolled out and broke along the sky. By night the glare of it reddened
the waves far out on the Big Water when the Fire Spirits began their
dance.
Then said the Counselor to the boy who was soon to be called the Fire
Bringer, "Do you stay here until I bring you a brand from the burning;
be ready and right for running, and lose no time, for I shall be far
spent when I come again, and the Fire Spirits will pursue me." Then he
went up the mountain, and the Fire Spirits when they saw him come were
laughing and very merry, for his appearance was much against him. Lean
he was, and his coat much the worse for the long way he had come.
Slinking he looked, inconsiderable, scurvy, and mean, as he has always
looked, and it served him as well then as it serves him now. So the Fire
Spirits only laughed, and paid him no farther heed. Along in the night,
when they came out to begin their dance about the mountain, the Coyote
stole the fire and began to run away with it down the slope of the
Burning Mountain. When the Fire Spirits saw what he had done, they
streamed out after him red and angry in pursuit, with a sound like a
swarm of bees.
The boy saw them come, and stood up in his place clean limbed and taut
for running. He saw the sparks of the brand stream back along the
Coyote's flanks as he carried it in his mouth and stretched forward on
the trail, bright against the dark bulk of the mountain like a falling
star. He heard the singing sound of the Fire Spirits behind and the
labored breath of the Counselor nearing through the dark. Then the good
beast panted down beside him, and the brand dropped from his jaws. The
boy caught it up, standing bent for the running as a bow to speeding the
arrow; out he shot on the homeward path, and the Fire Spirits snapped
and sung behind him. Fast as they pursued he fled faster, until he saw
the next runner stand up in his place to receive the brand. So it passed
from hand to hand, and the Fire Spirits tore after it through the scrub
until they came to the mountains of the snows. These they could not
pass, and the dark, sleek runners with the backward-streaming brand bore
it forward, shining star-like in the night, glowing red through sultry
noons, violet pale in twilight glooms, until they came in safety to
their own land. Here they kept it among stones, and fed it with small
sticks, as the Coyote had advised, until it warmed them and cooked their
food. As for the boy by whom fire came to the tribes, he was called the
Fire Bringer while he lived, and after that, since there was no other
with so good a right to the name, it fell to the Coyote; and this is the
sign that the tale is true, for all along his lean flanks the fur is
singed and yellow as it was by the flames that blew backward from the
brand when he brought it down from the Burning Mountain. As for the
fire, that went on broadening and brightening and giving out a cheery
sound until it broadened into the light of day, and Alan sat up to hear
it crackling under the coffee-pot, where his father was cooking their
breakfast.