Part 59 (1/2)

and she followed on, followed quickly.

The brother, when he smoked the second time, sat at a little spring on the western slope of the mountain ridge; the sister reached the ridge from the top; she saw her brother a little below her. He heard some one behind, looked up, and saw t.i.tildi Marimi. He held his head down, he said nothing.

”I shall be with you soon,” cried the sister. ”We can go on together.

You have come a long way to find a good smoking-place.”

He said nothing, looked at the ground, waited for his sister. Soon she was there with him.

”My brother, I am tired,” said she, ”give me tobacco; I wish to smoke.”

He gave her tobacco; she smoked.

”My brother,” said t.i.tildi Marimi, ”I want you to shoot at that quartz rock over there on the mountain side.”

He raised his bow with an arrow and took good aim.

”Now hit that rock,” said she.

He sent one arrow, after it a second, and then a third. They hit the rock, but bounded back from it.

”You might go a long way to hurt an enemy with arrows of that sort!”

laughed the sister. ”Do you think those good arrows, my brother? You will see enemies enough in two days; you will see enemies in the house of Wakara.”

She drew out her own bow then, took an arrow from her otter-skin quiver, and said, ”Look now at me, my brother!”

She shot at the rock; hit it. Her arrow s.h.i.+vered the rock to pieces.

”This is what my arrows do!” said t.i.tildi Marimi.

t.i.tindi Maupa hung his head; said not a word, but rose and went down the mountain side till he came to a creek; then he crossed another mountain, going westward all the time till he was in sight of Wakaruwa, the place to which he was going; then he sat down a third time and smoked.

”O smoke,” said he, ”I wish you to make friends to-night and to-morrow for me.”

He looked down into the valley, where he heard much noise; he saw many people playing games and shooting.

Just before this Wakara had called his youngest daughter, Paiowa, and said, ”I want you to gather oak leaves for the acorn bread, and red earth to mix in it.”

She went with a basket on her back, went up to the mountain side, gathered red earth to mix with the acorn flour and make the bread light. The leaves were to be put on the top of the dough and cover the bread while baking. t.i.tindi Maupa put his sister with her quiver in an otter-skin and carried her. She had made herself small, and seemed just like an otter; he hid her on his shoulder in this form.

Paiowa, Wakara's youngest daughter, had put red earth in her basket and filled it with leaves. She turned around now to stoop and raise it, but could not, it was too heavy.

t.i.tindi Maupa had slipped up and was holding the basket. She turned to see what the trouble was, and saw him right there almost touching her.

”Oh!” cried she, frightened and dropping her head; she was shamefaced before the stranger.

”Why are you afraid?” asked t.i.tindi Maupa. ”Is it because I am ugly?”

She raised the basket to her back, and rushed away. When she reached Wakaruwa, she threw down the basket outside, and ran into the house past her mother.

”Why are you so frightened? What is the matter?” asked her mother.