"Do not fear," he said. "No one shall take this back fat from you.
Now, take all those best pieces and hang them up, so that those who
live in the bear lodge may see them."
They did so. Pretty soon the old bear chief said to one of his
children, "By this time I think the people have finished killing. Go
out now and look about; see where the nicest pieces are, and bring
in some nice back fat."
One of the young bears went out of the lodge and stood up and looked
about, and when it saw this meat hanging by the old women's lodge
close by, it went over toward it.
"Ah," said the old women, "there are those bears."
"Do not be afraid," said Kut-o-yis´.
The young bear went over to where the meat was hanging and stood up
and began to pull it down. Kut-o-yis´ went out of the lodge and
said, "Wait; wait! What are you doing, taking the old women's meat?"
The young bear answered, "My father told me that I should go out and
get this meat and bring it home to him."
Kut-o-yis´ hit the young bear over the head with a stick and it ran
home crying.
When it had reached the lodge it told what had happened and the
father bear said, "I will go over there myself; perhaps this person
will hit me over the head."
When the old women saw the father and mother bear and all their
relations coming they were afraid, but Kut-o-yis´ jumped out of the
lodge and killed the bears one after another; all except one little
she-bear, a very small one, which got away.
"Well," said Kut-o-yis´, "you may go and breed more bears."
He told the old women to move over to the bear-painted lodge and
after this to live in it. It was theirs.
To the old women Kut-o-yis´ then said, "Now, grandmothers, where are
there any more people? I want to travel about and see them."
The old women said, "At the Point of Rocks--on Sun River--there is a
camp. There is a piskun there."
So Kut-o-yis´ set off for that place, and when he came to the camp
he went into an old woman's lodge.
The old woman gave him something to eat--a dish of bad food.
"Why is this, grandmother?" asked Kut-o-yis´. "Have you no food
better than this to give to a visitor? Down there I see a piskun;
you must kill plenty of buffalo and must have good food."
"Speak lower," said the old woman, "or you may be heard. We have no
good food because there is a great snake here who is the chief of
the camp. He takes all the best pieces. He lives over there in that
snake-painted lodge."
The next morning when the buffalo were led in, Kut-o-yis´ killed
one, and they took the back fat and carried it to their lodge. Then
Kut-o-yis´ said, "I think I will visit that snake person." He went
over and went into the lodge, and there he saw many women that the
snake person had taken to be his wives. The women were cooking some
service berries. Kut-o-yis´ picked up the dish and ate the berries
and threw the dish away. Then he went up to the big snake, who was
lying there asleep, and pricked him with his knife, saying, "Here,
get up; I have come to visit you. Let us smoke together."
Then the snake was angry and he raised up his head and began to
rattle, and Kut-o-yis´ cut off his head and cut him in pieces. He
cut off the heads of all the snake's wives and children; all except
one little female snake which got away by crawling into a crack in
the rocks.
"Oh, well," said Kut-o-yis´, "you can go and breed snakes so there
will be more. The people will not be afraid of little snakes."
Kut-o-yis´ said to the old woman, "Now, grandmother, go into this
snake lodge and take it for your own and everything that is in it."
Then he said to them, "Where are there some more people?" They told
him there were some camps down the river and some up in the
mountains, but they said, "Do not go up there. It is bad because
there lives [=A]i-s[=i]n´-o-k[=o]-k[=i]--Wind Sucker. He will kill
you."
Kut-o-yis´ was glad to know that there was such a person, and he
went to the mountains.
When he reached the place where Wind Sucker lived, he looked into
his mouth and saw there many dead people. Some were skeletons and
some had only just died. He went in, and there he saw a fearful
sight. The ground was white as snow with the bones of those who had
died. There were bodies with flesh on them; some who had died not
long before and some who were still living.
As he looked about, he saw hanging down above him a great thing that
seemed to move--to grow a little larger and then to grow a little
smaller.
Kut-o-yis´ spoke to one of the people who was alive and asked, "What
is that hanging down above us?"